


Hands of Gold

by Hagne



Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-21
Updated: 2019-09-28
Packaged: 2020-01-23 08:24:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18545998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hagne/pseuds/Hagne
Summary: Everyone looked for adventures. Everyone wanted to be the chosen one, the hero, but what everyone seemed to forget was that most adventures could have a deadly end, be the chosen one could be a curse, rather than a gift, and that nothing came without a price. At this point, the question to make to yourself was rather simple, will you be willing to pay it or not, in the end?





	1. Chapter I

The sand was soft under her feet, the wind a gentle breeze cold enough to make her shiver slightly in her light, white dress but not so chilly to bother her or to make her retreat and leave the shore, not when the mild water of the sea reached her ankles whenever she needed to warm up her body and her soul, brushing the tanned skin of her legs and the hem of her robe with the kindest of the touches.  
Water was just water was the favorite line her older brother used to grumble under his breath whenever she commented aloud how the sea could almost sense her distress, lulling her troubled gaze and heart with the mesmerizing dancing of the waves where she liked to wander barefoot when she felt down, or angry, or sad, so to sense the sand flaking off under her feet and the soothing caress of the tide as she advanced to reach the backdrop, finding herself floating in the sea, her head beneath the waves, the world behind her back, the silence around and inside her.  
And it was there, in the abyss, that she had always been able to hear it.  
So low to be mistaken for the of lapping the waves, but so clear to make her almost believe that someone was actually calling her, down there, in the abyss.  
That, someone, was calling her.  
Just her name.  
\- Andromeda.  
So great was the surprise to hear her name, there, out of the water, so clear and so real, to make Andromeda almost jump and fall into the sea, something her mother would not have liked, not at all. Not again. Not today.  
But she did not care. Not at the moment. Not when the restlessness that had made her run away and reach the beach to find some kind of rest from the anger still made her heart beat too fast, a restlessness that returned back to her with a shiver of fright when she felt the unexpected touch on her forearm, what had prevented her to fall into the water.  
And maybe, she would have screamed if she had not recognized the ruined skin of the fingertips that grazed her skin.  
Because it had not been for the agility she clearly didn't possess, or the luck she had never had, or the afterthought she could have had that Andromeda had not fallen, ruining her dress.  
She had been grabbed just in time by a hand. A male hand. Large. Callous. Rought.  
Familiar.  
A hand she covered with her own instinctively, freeing from her lungs a heavy sight that Andromeda, however, felt shattering as glass into her throat when the coldness of his hand seeped into her very bones, making her shake with worry and uneasiness, this time.  
Because Kai's hand had always been cold, rough, like the hand of a sailor, but not so chilly.  
Never so icy, like the hand of a dead man, an alarming thought that made her turn around with worried eyes that she opened wide in shock as her free hand reached Kai's shoulder to catch him, and the one she had on his strengthened the grip, to prevent him to fall on the ground, to his knees.  
A fall she really avoided and had not simply imagined, her ankles now covered by the damp sand where she sunk when Kai's body bent on her like the crooked trunk of an old tree, her small body the only thing that separated him from the shore and the waves that now had reached her knees.  
The tide had risen.  
Andromeda registered that small detail mechanically, just as when you hear the door ring and wait for the obvious to come, but what was happening was not obvious, not at all.  
Because the tide wasn't supposed to rise so soon, so abruptly, and Kai should not have been so cold.  
So unresponsive.  
It was not normal.  
It was strange.  
And it was beginning to scare her.  
\- Kai?  
Her voice was a tiny whisper, a shaking puff of air she muffled against the wet shirt Kai was wearing and that now she was gripping tightly, just to keep him standing, and it was then, that her brain registered another strange detail.  
Soaked.  
Kai was completely sopping, just as he had just came out of the sea that she had been watching a moment before.  
The sea she could feel now around her waist.  
\- Kai?  
Her hands ripped the damp shirt when she tried to find something to grab, to cling to, her legs sunk in the sand, her body drowned in the sea, her mind displaced by the confusion of what was happening before hearing a thrill so sharp to pierce the night as a gunshot.  
A sound Andromeda should not have found comforting or reassuring, but it was so, just as reassuring was her bother's worried voice through her phone when Andromeda managed to reach for her bra, taking with a shaking hand the robe where she had hidden her phone before getting away from the costume party.  
Because, as angry as she had been before, she had always been a mature person despite her age, and even if running away in the night, alone, wasn't what a mature person would have done, bringing with her the phone to call in case of danger was indeed wise.  
\- Where the hell are you Meda?  
Despite the anger that made Alec's voice less comforting and more appalling, Andromeda could recognize the concern in her brother's strained hiss, just as she could catch in the background the shout of her sister Alecta and the labored breath of Ferris in his attempt to keep up with his brothers, brothers she knew, were searching for her judging by the loud noise of overturned soil.  
But even if she should have been touched by their concern despite her outburst, what Andromeda was feeling at the moment was panic. Fear. And the desperate need to have someone able to explain to her what was happening.  
\- How could you wander with this darkness, alone? I am the reckless sibling, How could you-  
\- I am at the beach and I…I – she croaked with all the voice she could find in the pit of her upside down stomach, huffing in her attempt to keep Kai standing and not let them both drown in the water as she tried to move towards the beach, keeping, at the same time, the phone against her ear – I need help. Kai isn't feeling well, and the tide is rising and I-  
\- What do you mean Kai? ・shouted in the background Alecta, her usually sweet voice poisonous and dangerous like the hiss Alec released as their steps began to quicken and even Ferris's "no way" adviced her about how no one of them was thrilled by the idea of Kai's presence with her.  
\- I had already told you not to meet that strange man, Meda! You promised! And what do you mean by "the tide is rising?" Are you in the water again?  
They were arguing among themselves about how stupid their usually wise little sister was, but Andromeda did not have the time to explain, to be polite, to apologize, not when Kai was like that.  
Kai, a dangerous and sensitive topic she had learned not to bring up with her family, especially, with her family. Never again.  
Not when, for them, she kept on being a simple-minded, naive dreamer who can be fooled easily by anyone, especially by bad people, and a strange man they had never met, with no background and the double of her age was obviously a bad person.  
But they had never understood, and would have never understood how precious Kai's existence had always been for her.  
And she was too desperate to bring him to safety to attempt to defend her position, to be mild.  
\- I need help brother! I don't know what is happening, and I am scared! Please!  
Her heartfelt request for aid seemed to silence whatever rebuke her brothers were going to hurl at her, and for an instant she felt remorse and shame for her tiny whimper, for her trembling voice, for her frightened form, her, who, a few hours before, had claimed to be old enough to face the world alone.  
To be able to do great things.  
Great things? She scoffed to herself as she fell to her knees with Kai wrapped around her like a man lost in the storm, her hands still on his back and her eyes now filled with the tears that had broken her voice.  
She wasn't even able to help a friend, how could she do great things?  
\- We are coming, Andromeda, stay still and don't hang up, keep talking to me. How is he now? Is he feeling better? How is the tide?  
A little baffled for the change of his voice and his seriousness, Andromeda was late on answering right away, but when she finally returned to her senses, she tried to see how Kai was feeling.  
His arms were around her as heavy as stones, but she could feel his heartbeat against her chest, and the feeble breath against her neck when she let his head rest on her shoulder, so to have a look around them, because they were alone, in the dark, and even if Irkalia wasn't a dangerous place, anything could happen.  
\- I don't know, he is cold, too cold brother. I am scared.  
\- Don't be scared, we are already there. Dad and mom are also with us. Are you two alone? Is someone else there with you?  
Of course not was what Andromeda was going to say, but she decided to keep sealed in her mouth the instinctive answer to have a look around, just to be sure.  
The moonlight was too dim to let her see clearly what was before her, but she knew her island as the palm of her hand, and she could see if something was out of place, and no, nothing was out of place.  
She could see the dirt road that led to the small village, the sharp rock of the cliff that divided the sea into two, but no, they were alone. They were safe. They were-  
Do not fear him.  
Her sharp intake of breath did not go unnoticed judging by the storm of questions Alec tossed upon her when she lost her voice and the color on her face while Kai's voice, his low and stiff warning echoed in her mind and chest as a rope she felt tightening, and tightening and tightening around her heart and frightened soul, taking her breath away.  
A hold she failed to loosen while Alec's voice began to shout her name with fear clear in his calls and her eyes, the only moving thing in her body, focused on the black shadow she could now see few steps away from them, from her.  
Apparently shapeless. Apparently unmoving.  
Apparently not alive.  
But when she saw him move, when she saw him look, the only thing she could do apart from widening her eyes and hold Kai in her trembling arms was rummaging in the pit of her stomach the voice she had failed to find before, but that now, with the lapping of the waves behind her and the desperate calling of her brothers to echo in her hear, allowed her to breath and, finally, to scream.

 

°°°

 

Eight hours before.  
\- A little higher.  
Knitting her eyebrows in concentration, Andromeda tried to lift the lantern without falling from the chairs she was using as a ladder, a film of sweat to show how really she was trying to do her best with what her mother wanted, but as always, Calisto didn't seem to notice her effort or her discomfort.  
\- I said a little higher, Andromeda. Not all the people in the world are as short as you.  
\- And gas lanterns didn't exist until the nineteenth century- she mumbled under breath, but when her mother asked her to repeat herself she preferred to keep silent, no one was ever interested in what she said anyway, and, as her mother used to repeat, people didn't like a know-it-all.  
A know-it-all.  
Andromeda had never wanted to be a know-it-all, she just loved to learn what she didn't know to be able to do everything on her own.  
Trivial things. Important things.  
It never mattered to her. If there was something new to learn, if there was something she didn't know, then she was happy to learn it, it was simple like that.  
Actually, she didn't even like to be at the center of attention.  
She preferred to stay on the sidelines, just as she had been for most of the day before her mother had found her, and by founding her she really meant the act of finding someone who was hiding, and from what, her mother knew very well.  
The costume party.  
It was Irkalia's best attraction, something her mother had thought with the purpose of raising their income, a clever way to attract more tourist on the island and in their hotel, and as everything her mother did, it had been obviously perfect, fitting, moneymaking.  
Dressing as Greek gods in a magical island full of legend, dancing all the night with the lapping of the sea to conduct their steps, drinking more than Baccus would ever have done.  
Who would have not liked something like that?  
No one.  
No one except Andromeda.  
Truly, she liked the first part, and even the second wasn't that bad, but the problem was the third.  
Because, even if not all the tourist were bad people, most of them were rude, ignorant and, when drunk, incredibly troublesome and harmful, especially for old, precious and fragile arts, and Iraklia was full of them, and it did not help her concerned mind to stay at ease.  
\- Why do have you to be so small?  
Even before Andromeda could have the time to let herself lose the balance for her mother's observation, there was a pair of gentle arms to prevent her to crash on the ground, making a fool of herself. Again.  
\- Because this way she is perfect to hug.  
It was funny, seriously, how such a sweet sentence could come from a man so bulky and intimidatory, but Seoras had always been a man full of surprise, and kindness, the same kindness that had made her mother return back to the place she had left long ago.  
\- See? Perfect.  
\- See? Incest.  
Andromeda was very quick on returning to her feet with a gentle smile for her step-father before Alec, her older brother, a sly fox as Alecta liked to address him, could mock her and his father's position, a joke Seoras didn't seem to like judging by the slap on the nape he gave to the eldest son.  
\- Don't joke about something like this Alec. I expect from you an appropriate behavior towards your little sister.  
\- And were you being appropriate for carrying her princess-like, old man?  
Here it comes.  
Andromeda braced herself when she caught the sly smile of her older brother.  
He had done it on purpose, obviously it was on purpose, Alec loved to embarrass her, because, if there was something in which Seoras was a champion other than making people feel at ease with his easygoing attitude and kind sky blue eyes, it was obviously on expressing how much he loved his family, and, obviously the smallest of his daughter.  
\- She is a princess. My princess.  
Blushing and running away had always been one of the few abilities Andromeda had ever had, not stumbling while doing it was, however, another thing she failed to accomplish, and she stumbled obviously, just how obvious was for her to stumble not against something, but someone, and to be more precise, against a soft chest that worsened her blush before a gentle hand could pat her head in a reassuring way.  
\- Could you stop this? You are embarrassing me and Andromeda.  
\- And me – piped the little child who was hiding behind the tall, blonde woman who had just entered the little hotel, a scowl on his tanned face – you should stop that. Let her be.  
\- Stop what? – joked Alec with a smug smile, gaining another slap from his father before a firm hand grasped his shoulder.  
\- Alright, let's stop this. We have things to do, people to feed, no more interruption. I want all of you dressed and ready for tonight.  
Calisto's speech had been enough to put everyone in their place, something no one could do given the temper of each siblings, but Seoras loved his wife dearly, and he did what she wanted from him without complaining, while the others were too scared of her to say a word in the matter.  
Calisto was, after all, a fiery beautiful woman with an equally fiery temper no one wanted to face, but no one of them had ever received from the woman a hard word or a cruel reproach, no one except Andromeda.  
Obviously. How could she not be the exception, every time?  
She always was.  
Her mother had always been particularly hard with her, and strict. Harsh. Unforgiving.  
Whenever she failed, Calisto had been there to criticize her and her soft spirit.  
Too naive.  
Too dreamer.  
Too lost in her own little world made of books, brushes and tools she used to fix the old, ruined things she had found in the sand, old item that smelled of legends, adventures she would have liked to have but couldn't.  
An old jar. A ruined book.  
It didn't mean what she found during her incursions on the island, Andromeda had always been able to fix it, keeping them safe in her room.  
Her sanctuary.  
Drawing. Painting. Molding the stone.  
She liked to use her hand with every tool. A brush, a pencil, a scalpel, and sometimes, even a trowel.  
Get dirty was fun, and she was not abashed of the condition of her dress. Of her hand.  
Or at least, she didn't mind it when no one was looking at her, but Calisto's stern gaze made her well aware of how messy she appeared with her wrinkled dress, her childish pigtails and the fresh traces of clay to mark her cheeks and dirt her fingertips.  
Her mother disapproved her hobby, the "trash" she brought back home, actually, she thought very little of her, of the things she could do, so little, that Andromeda knew what her mother would have said if she had ever tried to share with Calisto her dream to travel around the world to become a restorer and archeologist.  
Because she wanted to be both the things, not just one, like normal people.  
She wanted to be able to find and to fix what the past and men had forgotten, what she knew was important.  
Because you could only learn from the past, and she wanted to learn everything she could.  
Not that she would have liked to be a female Indiana Jones.  
She had never been physically strong. Or agile.  
Indiana Jones could keep the title as the brilliant and cooler archeology and history teacher, she would have been satisfied with just being brilliant, the cool part was something she didn't really need.  
She was not inclined to bed whatever thing moved or bring death and destruction upon her and the world just for the fun of being reckless.  
Think before acting was her motto.  
So no archery for her. No sword fight. No vines to cling on.  
Just her books and her tiny hands and tools to let her protect the treasure of a past no one wanted to preserve.  
You?  
That one would have been the first thing Calisto would have said to her with an incredulous look and a sarcastic tone.  
Ah. And easily despondent. How could she forget another of her many qualities?  
Really, she was very good at bringing herself down, Andromeda reasoned with herself with a small smile, stepping towards the kitchen where she had left the old vase she was trying to fix before changing idea, reaching the door that led outside.  
\- Where are you going now?  
The hand she had lifted to touch the knob stiffened when she heard Calisto's suspicious voice behind her, and Andromeda was really tempted to ignore her that time, but whatever she was going to say, the harsh words she felt rising in her throat rolled back when the image of her mother curled on her bed and the faraway sound of a woman's cry flashed on her mind, erasing the dejection of her voice and the tears in her eyes.  
\- I am going to the beach to find some seashell for my costume.  
Such a lame excuse, because obviously, she wasn't even a good liar, actually, she wasn't good in many things, but her mother seemed content with just that, for once, and Andromeda was fine with it, everything was fine as long as she could be far away from her harsh word, away, where she had always failed to notice the concerned shadow that darkened her mother's eyes whenever she gave her back to her.  
Because Andromeda had inherited from her mother more than she thought, just like the bad habit to turn a blind eye on what she thought to know, eyes Andromeda raised on the sea with a heavy sight when she reached the beach to search for seashells.  
\- That one was a long sigh, my dear. Are you tired?  
Fear and surprise should have been the first things to feel in hearing the deep voice behind her back, just like running away should have been the best thing to do in that kind of situation, but Andromeda didn't do any of that.  
She simply let herself fall on the sand with another sigh, encircling her legs with an arm while sinking her chin on her knees and wait for the stranger to reach her.  
And he reached her, actually, he even sat on her right, silently, without even moving a grain of sand.  
How he could be so light, so relaxed despite his tall form was one the many mysteries that surrounded him, mysteries that Andromeda had never been able to uncover, not even after so many years.  
\- What happened?  
Instead of answering him, Andromeda hid her face against her legs, her back a little stiff for the cold wind that began to blow above her heard, shaking the crane of chocolate curl that fell around her as a dark, heavy curtain.  
But instead of feeling offended by her silence and rude response, what she felt falling on her head wasn't a heavy and harsh silence, but a cold hand that the man to her right had just placed on her hair, a gentle caress that almost bring her to tears.  
Kai had always been able to read her mood and give her what she needed.  
It was strange, really, as a man like him could read her so easily, and she wasn't talking only about his age or his wise eyes, no, she was talking about his ability to comfort her when she needed to be comforted, and to let her be when she needed to be left alone.  
Andromeda didn't know how long she had been curled on herself, his hand on her head, unmoving, but when she decided to stand again, she could feel a slight pain in her knees, the sign that maybe, she had been like that for hours and that, unfortunately, it was time for her to go home.  
She stretched in the sunlight, her eyes closed before the sun she knew, was drowning in the sea.  
With her eyes still closed, she reached for the shore, kicking away her sandals to feel on her skin the smooth water that embraced her ankles as she bent on herself to search for the seashell in the warm water.  
\- Feeling better?  
Blinking in the sunlight, Andromeda let Kai's deep voice sink into her soul, a rumble she always compared to the lapping of the waves of the sea.  
Truly, Kai had always been similar to the sea with which she had shared most of her worries and tears.  
Quiet. Gentle.  
Sometimes wild. Sometimes deep. Sometimes far, but always, always able to comfort her.  
To find her when she wanted to be found.  
How he could do that, she had never known, but she had stopped asking herself anyway.  
They had met on that same beach, with the same light, the same silence a long time ago.  
She had been nine, a shy, clumsy little thing too destabilized from the news of a new dad, new brothers, and a new house to stand still and not running away on her own.  
She had always had the bad habit of running away to give herself the time to recompose herself before returning to her mother with a smile.  
But that time, instead of the silence and darkness of her room, she had found on the shore the lonely shape of a man with the bluest eyes she had never seen.  
He had ignored her at first.  
Cruel, maybe, leaving a little child to weep on her own, but he had never tried to reach for her, and maybe, it had been better that way, otherwise, Andromeda would have ran away in fright.  
In fact, she had been the one to reach out.  
It had happened after she had finished crying, when it had been time to go home, but when she had seen the same man standing where he had been, alone, she had decided to go to tell him to go home too.  
Obviously, it had been dangerous to approach a stranger with no one to help her on a deserted beach where everything could happen, but when he had ignored her call and her naive attempt to be noticed, Andromeda had become more focused and stubborn only as a child could be on sending him home.  
Because it was late, and someone was probably waiting for him too.  
And, as strange as it could seem, he had been the one to be startled by her.  
She had felt him stiffen when she had touched his leg to attract his attention, and when she had told him to go home too, then, he had watched her with so much wonder in his blue eyes to make her blush.  
He had stared at her in silence for a couple of minutes without talking or moving, and she had done the same thing, worried that maybe he had not liked her intrusion and was probably going to shout at her.  
But then, slowly, his gaze had softened, his shoulder had sagged, just as he had just let go of a heavy burden, and despite her worry, he had not shouted at her, he had simply placed a gentle hand on her head, asking for her name, a name Andromeda had obviously given him with a smile before going home, asking him to go home too.  
And she had hoped to meet him again, and they had done it. They had met the next day, and the day next to it.  
Always on the same beach, always with the same sun and always at the same time.  
Actually, very few things had changed since then.  
Her age.  
Her voice.  
Her body.  
But not Kai.  
Never Kai.  
No, she thought with a frown when, turning, she met the same gentle blue eyes of the man.  
He had not changed, not a bit.  
He was still tall. Still slender. Still dark, and, apparently, ageless.  
She didn't know how old Kai was in reality, she had asked once, but when he had said "very old" she had decided to drop the conversation, after all, it was not important how old he was, he was precious to her anyway.  
\- What are you doing?  
\- Searching for seashells.  
Yes.  
She was searching for seashells, really, this time.  
Calisto was a clever woman, after all, and since she had promised to come back with seashells, then she would have brought back home seashells.  
\- What for?  
Curious.  
Kai had always been curious, just like a child.  
He liked to ask questions about everything, especially about small things, obvious matter, silly issues people thought to know but did not really understand, not like her at least.  
Andromeda had always been an avid reader, thirsty for knowledge.  
And the reason why she had become so obsessed with knowing everything wasn't as noble as people thought.  
She wasn't genius, a gifted child, or a haughty person, someone who wanted to triumph in life, she just wanted to know everything to be able to fix what had been broken.  
Things.  
People.  
And hearts.  
Especially, hearts.  
Because Calisto wasn't a perfect mother, she had her flaws, her fault, but Andromeda had never been able to let her be alone, to let her be left behind as her father had done.  
No. She wasn't like her father.  
She really loved her mother, and it was just for her that she had begun to read, to learn, to want to know everything she could, just to help her, to support her.  
To protect Calisto from her desire for self-destruction.  
That was the only reason Andromeda tried always so hard. For her.  
Always, for her.  
-For my dress, I need something showy to wear or my mother will complain about how plain I am.  
Honestly, she wasn't really plain per se.  
She was a little short, yes, but she was very similar to her mother.  
However, Calisto was taller, more slender than her, with soft golden hair and honey-colored eyes, eyes she had inherited, but not her hair, hers were brown, dark but not completely black, and, as Seoras loved to repeat, she was "perfect to hug" with her rounded hips, a generous chest and soft thigs and arms.  
But her hair, well, they weren't so nice, and the fact that she was too lazy to take care of them did not help.  
She had never taken care of her marron locks as Alecta or her mother had done, their hair were long, smooth, while hers were wild, curly and so puffy to make her look smaller than she was.  
It had always been hard for her to take care of them, so she usually let them be, but not tonight. No.  
Not tonight.  
Alecta would have thought of her hair, of the makeup, of everything, the only thing she would have had to do would have been keeping an eye on the tourist and try to protect her island's masterpiece by the savage attack of some drunkard.  
Well, if she could just find a damned seashell.  
With a huff, Andromeda rummaged into the waves with narrowed eyes in the hope to find something, but whenever she stood up she was left empty-handed.  
Really? There wasn't a single seashell in the sea?  
\- Is this showy enough?  
\- This? - she asked curiously with her eyes still glued to the waves, before lifting her face to find out what he meant with this, and when she recognized the beautiful bracelet Kai usually kept hidden in his robes she blinked a couple of time before grimacing.  
The first time she had seen the beautiful jewel she had mistaken it for a pretty, shiny rock.  
At the time she had been fifteen, old enough to understand how strange was for something so beautiful to be found there, on the shore, in plain sight.  
A lost item, maybe, one of the many she had found while pretending to be a famous archeologist, digging a hole wherever she could, but no one ventured to the windy side of the island, therefore she had suspected some kind of prove to see how she would have acted, used as she had become with Kai's habit to test her reactions, but when she had asked Kai if that one was one of his strange trials, he had denied it with a patient smile, telling her that since she had been able to find it, then, it was hers to take, but she couldn't.  
How could she?  
After all, she had not really done anything to find it, the jewel had not even been hidden at all, of course she would have found it, everyone would have found it, so she had refused to keep it, a rejection Kai had welcomed with a cryptic smile and the promise to give back what was hers when the time would have arrived.  
A time for what, she had never known, but it seemed that the time, as Kai called it, had finally arrived.  
\- I don't think it's appropriate.  
\- Appropriate?  
\- Don't take me wrong, it's beautiful, too beautiful actually, I don't think it's suitable for ...well... for me.  
The silence that followed her stuttering was so uncommon to make her lower her face and ask herself if she had offended him that time, if she had been too forceful, too rude, but when she felt the soft touch on her elbow she did not step back, not even when Kai's dark form shadowed hers, blocking the sun on his back while his hand gently grabbed the arm she had withdrew instinctively.  
\- Believe me when I say that you are the only one suitable for this.  
There was no romantic meaning in the words Kai whispered, none of his compliment had ever carried a deep meaning, because, despite what her family could believe, his affection towards her was different from the one of a lover.  
It was not passionate, wild or desperate.  
He loved her as you could love a beautiful flower.  
Platonically.  
At a distance.  
And just as a flower he touched her, gently, with so much care to distract her from the long fingers that, without her noticing, had taken the bracelet she felt closing around her wrist with a soft click.  
\- What-  
\- It is meant for you, Andromeda.  
Scary.  
For the first time in her life, Kai's solemn and cryptic sentence made her feel shaken and a little troubled, even if she had never minded his gravity, his high expectations toward her, almost as if she had had to do something extraordinary, something Andromeda did not know if she was capable to accomplish with all her insecurities to always bring her down.  
Insecurities she now was trying to put aside, taking a deep breath before leaving the safety of the corner where she was hiding, reaching her family gathered in the center of the room with a couple of tourists.  
The first to notice her was obviously Alec, the last she wanted to meet knowing how her brother would have reacted to her unusual attire.  
Andromeda tripped over her own feet when she heard the low whistle her brother released when he saw her and her dress, after all, Alecta had been magnificent, and very patient with her.  
Andromeda knew how irritating she could become when someone cornered her, but her sister had ignored her and her complains, finishing what she had called her masterpiece.  
\- I will never discredit your skills as a beautician ever again, sister.  
With her eyes glued to the hem of her silky dress, Andromeda did not see the satisfied smile of Alecta or the way the eyes of the eldest of the sibling had softened up for her shy behavior, what she heard, however, was the warm voice of Seoras and his incessant "beautiful, beautiful" to make her blush from ear to toe.  
Beautiful.  
Seoras had always called her beautiful, pretty, lovely, but that time, even Andromeda was able to see her like that, to feel, like that.  
Her hair was unmanageable as always, but, for the first time, there was a sense in the wild, curly locks Alecta had pinned up to the side of the head with a pretty clip, a couple of striking, golden earring to tingle and caress her naked shoulders whenever she lowered her chin, thing that happened everytime someone met her eyes.  
She was dying of embarrassment, but at least she was beautiful just as she had wanted to be, her jewelry showy just as her mother would have liked, while her dress, well, her dress was simple as she had wanted, a light peplum that reached the floor into a pool of white silk, leaving her arms bare and a modest neckline that showed only her collarbone and the delicate line of the neck.  
\- And you are?  
Her mother's voice had not been hard, or angry, or annoyed, but Andromeda was so used to brace herself whenever Calisto spoke to her to take it as a taunt instinctively.  
\- Ipazia – she whispered softly, concerned about her reaction, a reaction for which she did not have to wait for long.  
\- I have never heard of her.  
A grimace darkened her face when she heard it, something she was used to hear from others and, unfortunately, even from her mother.  
After all, no one knew what she was saying half of the time, so she did not take it to heart.  
It was fine like that. It was not her fault.  
They weren't supposed to know everything like her, no one of them actually wanted to know everything like her, but, at least, Andromeda wanted to explain to her mother the reason behind her strange choice, behind her constant being different from all the other girls who had preferred to dress as Venus.  
As someone everyone knew.  
\- Ipazia was a philosopher and a mathematics – she explained with a soft voice, trying not to have a lecturing tone and sound like a know-it-all - She had been killed by fanatics who did not accept the freedom of her thoughts.  
She was different like me, but Andromeda left that last sentence hidden behind her lips, waiting for a reaction from her mother, anything more than her indifferent gaze and stony silence, but maybe, silence would have been better, for her, and for the heart Andromeda felt shatter in her chest when the blow came.  
\- It was silly of me to expect from you something normal, for once.  
Crack.  
For an instant, a long, terrible instant, it was difficult for her to understand what had actually been shattered, what had just happened, but when no one around her seemed affected by the loud crash or the distressing silent that followed it, then, Andromeda finally understood that what had just been shattered to pieces wasn't around her, it wasn't near her, but inside her.  
In her chest.  
\- Why.  
The music was too high, the voice too shrilling, the surrounding too chaotic to let her whisper reach who was in front of her, but when someone tried to touch her trembling shoulder in seeing her waving on her feet, something snapped inside her, and the crash, this time, wasn't something abstract, something only Andromeda could hear.  
The silence that followed the glass she had just threw against the wall did not affect her, just as the curious eyes of the tourist and the surprised gaze of her family did not dampen the anger that was making her breath heavily, hardening her form and the eyes she now held steady on her mother with so much fury to make her take a step away.  
\- Why? How can you so cruel to me. Why?  
So angry.  
She was feeling so angry at the moment, and hurt, and desperate, to become insensitive of what was happening around her, of the people she did not see, not with the pain to cloud her mind and to poison her voice.  
Her tongue.  
\- Did you find it funny, make a fool of me every time? Am I such a nuisance to you? What is the problem of being me?  
Stop.  
The desperate cry went unnoticed in her head while her hands began to shake and her mouth kept on spitting cruel words toward her mother and her siblings, too surprised to able to curb her outburst or pacify her anger.  
\- Am I too strange for you?  
\- Meda-  
\- And you! - Alec winced when she looked at him, her eyes full of the tears she felt rolling on her cheeks - Is it funny for you to embarrass me every time? Are you enjoying yourself while I die of shame, Alec?  
\- That's enough Andromeda.  
\- That's not enough mother!  
Her scream was shrilling, pathetic, just as pathetic was her outburst, but Andromeda was too hurt to be able to come to her sense, to understand when to stop.  
To be mature.  
But she wasn't as mature as everyone thought.  
She was just eighteen years old, after all, she wasn't even an adult.  
She was simply lost.  
And hurt. And broken, a shattered piece of glass no one had ever tried to pick up from the ground.  
A piece of glass everyone had trampled again, and again, and again up to break it.  
\- I am not stupid, you know? I am not an I-know-it-all, I am just me! I can do great things if I want to ! I can do whatever I want, and go whenever I want, without any of you!  
That look.  
Andromeda knew that look, she had seen it too many times whenever her father left her and a crying Calisto in their home in Berlin, it was the look of when something was breaking you from the inside, but Andromeda was too broken herself to remember that, between her mother and herself, Calisto had always been the fragile one.  
\- I know, mother, that you don't like me very much – and it was then that what had hardened her voice faded away abruptly, leaving behind the quiet whisper of a confused teen with a broken heart and the desperate desire to be enough for her mother, to be able to make her proud, to make both of them happy like her father had not been able to do, but maybe, she was more similar to him that she had thought.  
\- You should have left me as you had left him.  
That one had been the last, horrible thing she had said to her mother before running away, reaching the beach to cry out her anger, never turning back, never waiting for one of them to run after her, but now, as the fear crawled on her back, biting each nerve of her body, Andromeda could not prevent herself to wish for one of them to be with her.  
For her mother, to be with her.  
\- Andromeda? Andromeda? Are you alright? Andromeda!  
Alec's voice was swallowed by the sand where the phone had just fallen when Andromeda, in her attempt to bring herself and Kai away from the thing, had only been able to crawl a little, her hands now anchored on Kai's back while her eyes did not leave, not even for a second, whatever was looking back at her with red eyes.  
Eyes?  
Andromeda didn't know if the ruby orbs gleaming in the darkness were eyes. She didn't even know if what she watching was a man.  
If it was human.  
\- Sta- tay away from me!  
A scream, that was what Andromeda had wanted to release from her trembling lips, what she had expected to hear echoing around them, but what came out from her mouth had been just a feeble whisper that the waves behind her swallowed along with her hips when she stepped back, making her shiver for the cold and the fear that was overwhelming her.  
\- Stay-tay away from m-the scream came out this time, it grew into her throat and pierced the night when Kai, still unresponsive, still heavy in her arms, literally melted in her hold, leaving her with nothing more than her own horror and dread to curb.  
And she broke down.  
A scream escaped her constricted chest while her hands ran into her damp hair, her fingers so violent on her head to scratch her skull while another scream, and another and another one kept on leaving her trembling lips, leaving her breathless and hopeless.  
Defenseless.  
A sob escaped her lips when the thing moved a step towards her trembling form, forcing her to take one step back, her hands now on the mouth she tightened to hold her voice, shutting her eyes and praying for herself to wake up.  
Wake up.  
The whisper did not leave her sealed lips, it remained a thought, a mantra Andromeda kept on telling herself while shuddering whenever a soft hiss in front of her made her aware that he was approaching her, that the thing was trying to reach her.  
Yes. She must be dreaming. Maybe she had fallen asleep on the beach without knowing.  
Maybe it was all a nightmare, a horrible, dreadful nightmare.  
She thought so, she hoped so, but despite her hopes and her thoughts, the thing kept on advancing, she kept on recoiling, and everything kept on drowning as her in the water that now had reached her elbow.  
Her shoulder.  
Her chin.  
Wake up.  
Wake up.  
Wake up.  
Wake-  
\- Get out from there!  
\- Mom?  
Water filled her throat and lungs when Andromeda called out for her mother, her voice a far away ring into her ears, a trick of her mind, the sign that she had gone mad, but when Calisto's voice returned to shake her from her frozen state, then, moving towards that voice, towards the only normal and familiar thing was natural.  
Necessary.  
\- Leave or take.  
As heavy as stones, the arms Andromeda had started to move in confusion in the water to reach the shape she saw advancing towards the beach fell along her sides, her feet drowned, her body left at the mercy of the wild waves she felt stirring around her.  
But it wasn't because of them that she had stopped, it wasn't for the fear that made her greet her teeth that she had frozen up, but for the voice she had just heard in her head.  
Kai's voice.  
Kai, who just a moment before had melted into her arms just like ice under the sun.  
Kai, who now seemed everywhere around her.  
In the cold air she could feel biting her neck.  
In the icy water she could feel freezing her to the bones.  
In the heart she could feel throbbing in her ears.  
Her throat.  
Her hands.  
And even if it was crazy to talk to the void, even if it was silly of her to ignore the calls of her family or the sudden jolt of the shadow, Andromeda did not try to reach her mother.  
She did not try to get out of the water, she remained still, her eyes wide. Her mouth dry.  
Her troubled heart lulled by Kai's voice, the only sound she chose to listen, in the end.  
To think of something real.  
\- Take.  
She spoke that time, with her mouth and her soul, and as everytime she tried to speak, her voice was soft, slow, quiet, a voice no one heard.  
Not the family she could now see under the pale, gentle moonlight.  
Not the shadow who now was looking like her the running people in the sand.  
But he heard it.  
He had always beel able to hear her inner voice.  
And only him she chose to listen, in the end.  
Not the cry of pain and horror of Calisto when the woman saw her daughter, so little and frail surrounded by dark and wild waves running towards them, yes, towards them, but not to reach them, not to grab her hand, not to hug her mother.  
Because when Andromeda stretched out her own hand, it wasn't her mother's fingers what she grabbed, it wasn't her mother's shape what she touched, but him, the thing who would have clutched Calisto if she had not grabbed him first.  
\- Andromeda?  
When Calisto saw her daughter lift her chin at her faint whisper, she blinked in confusion when she recognized it.  
That look.  
Strong. Unwavering. And gentle.  
Strong, as the eyes and tiny hands that had ripped Calisto from her undone bed and dark room to let her see the light once again.  
Unwavering as the gaze Andromeda had interposed between Calisto and the indifferent and cold eyes of the man they had left for good. Together. Her small form the only support that had always kept her standing. And tall. And strong.  
And the gentle, so gentle eyes Andromeda softened up when Calisto failed to touch her face when she dragged back herself and the shadow, her fingers a soft caress she could only imagine behind her closed eyelids while hardening her grip around the thing to prevent him to get away, to take her mother whenever they were going.  
Because that one wasn't a dream.  
She hadn't gone mad.  
She had just been caught in something nor she nor the people she saw stiffen in watching the dark shadow stirring into her clutch could understand.  
Take or leave.  
Kai's voice was still echoing in her hand, his low voice no more gentle.  
No more kind.  
But solemn.  
Painful.  
And painful was what followed her choice.  
Her action.  
When she felt her right arm sting, Andromeda could not even imagine the searing pain that would have assaulted every nerve of her body, but the only thing she could do was bearing the pain the best she could.  
Even if the pain made her ears hiss, and her eyes sting, and her heart break.  
She did not let go, she kept on holding on.  
For herself, and for the family she heard screaming before being crushed by the hight, ominous waves that, without caring for the broken woman on the sand and the cry of pain of the people around her, swallowed her daughter and the horrible thing she was holding firmly before becoming still as nothing had happened.  
As Andromeda had just died.  
Just like that.  
Just in front of their eyes.  
But dead she wasn't still. Oh no. Not still. Not yet.  
She was sinking, slowly, silently, with complete darkness to welcome her eyes and engulf her form and what her arms, even despite the pain, kept on holding firmly.  
She was drowning.  
She knew it.  
She could feel her bones yield to the high pressure of the water.  
Do you want to die?  
Her eyes opened wide when her internal voice asked that question.  
Do you want to die? Just like that?  
Die? - she asked herself once again, looking at the surface with longing and despair.  
Did she wante to die?  
No.  
She didn't want to die, not yet, not like that.  
There were many things she wanted to do, many places she wanted to see, many people she wanted to meet, and it was then, just then, that her survival instinct kicked in.  
Because she was drowning, and no one would have let himself to drow voluntarily.  
Not even her. Not even if Kai's warning was still echoing in her mind.  
But she had done enough.  
She had left her family and took the thing.  
She had choosen to take the monster to protect them.  
She could try to resurface now.  
But without him.  
Never, with him.  
Her hands loosened the grip even before her brain could tell them to let go, and just as a stone threw in the water, the thing began to sink, slowly, sucked by the current that Andromeda fought with all her might, swimming the best she could to reach the surface a hand suddenly pierced like a knife.  
Seoras's strong hand, maybe, or her mother's frail grip.  
But the hand wasn't gentle, it wasn't frail, it was just hard, and cold, and cruel when the long, spidery fingers did not take her hand, but her neck.  
Hard. Cruelly. Painfully.  
Just as painful was the first breath Andromeda could take when the stranger pulled her out from the water, a breath she lost when the hand, instead of loosening the hold, began to tighten.  
To break her neck.  
Because she had failed.  
She had let go when she shouldn't have, and when her body crashed on a floor, tearing her a last, weak breath, Andromeda knew that she was dying, really, that time, and that despite her will and all the things she knew, she could not fix anything, that time.  
Not her broken promise.  
And not even herself.

Thanks for reading!


	2. Chapter II

A blinding light.  
In every book she had read, in every legend she had heard, every exciting adventure began that way.  
With a blinding light that made you shut your eyes, strong vertigos that made you just want to throw up and finally, after all the daze that had made you too confused and too stunned to understand and see, the wonder of finding a beautiful and magical world in front of you to make you smile.  
But Andromeda had not seen any blinding light, not even when her heavy eyelids managed to hatch a little to look at her surrounding, surrounding that were not beautiful or magical at all. They were just raw, bare. Cold.  
And no. No blinding light. Not even a ray of it. Just darkness.  
Thick, stifling, and almost solid darkness, heavy on her shoulders and bowed head.  
What about vertigos then?  
No, not even vertigos. She had no nausea, no need to throw up, she was just feeling numb, and tired, but not confused. No. Not even that.  
Andromeda was well aware of the dryness of her mouth, the stiffness of her limbs, the weakness in her bones and the itching of her right arm, arm her eyes sought with uneasiness, afraid of finding burned skin or her bones in plain sight after the searing pain that had made her scream and cry, but no, no burned skin, no bulging bones, just her arm, Kai's bracelet and cold handcuffs to lock her wrist.  
Handcuffs?  
A sharp tinkle followed the stirring of her arms when Andromeda tried to see if even her other wrist was locked, and it was with horror that she noticed not only the cruel handcuffs clenched around her tanned skin, but even the long chain that made her bump against a stone wall when she tried to stand up.  
But nothing, nothing was comparable to the despair that filled her eyes now clouded with tears when the scream she was expecting to hear did not come, even if her lips kept on moving, even if her chest began to burn, even if her throat quivered under the air that left her lungs, but did not make a sound, not even a note.  
\- *Why aren't you dead?  
Her head snapped up when she heard the rasping voice a few steps from her, yes, a voice, dark, low and so cold to make her shiver more than the icy winter she could feel grazing her skin, however, even if she could hear him, his voice, she could not understand the words or recognize the language with which he was speaking to her, but it did not really matter if she could understand him or not, not when something grasped violently her throat, silencing her thoughts while the man, or so she thought, so she hoped, dragged her to her feet with so much speed to make her eyes dance behind the eyelids she had closed instinctively for fear of what she would have found in front of her.  
-* I killed you.  
Something sticky hit her face, a trail of saliva her terrified mind shrieked horrified, but Andromeda did not even dare to open her eyes and see if she had been right about the sticky thing she could feel slipping on her chin, not when the hissing voice was so close to her, so close that she could almost feel his breath into her own mouth.  
\- *Why aren't you dead?  
A hiss.  
Whoever was in front of her wasn't speaking, he was simply hissing, or gurgling or whatever a raging animal would have done to intimidate his opponent, but Andromeda wasn't simply intimidated by him, she was scared to death.  
Yes, scared, so scared that she could actually tell which one of her tooth was quivering.  
She was a tangle of fear, horror and confusion, but in all the shambles that was now her mind, there was still a part of her lucid enough to realize that she wasn't dreaming, or hallucinating. Unfortunately.  
It was all real. Painfully real.  
Real as the terror that was biting her soul, real as the sorrow that filled her throat of new screams she could not free, and real as the horrible creature who kept on hissing and spitting in her face, tugging her like a rag doll she would have liked to become, so to not be able to feel anything anymore.  
\- *Is this what keeps you alive?  
When Andromeda felt the hand that was holding her by the throat sliding down her chest, something snapped inside her, and even before her internal voice could tell her to stand still, not to move, to keep on pretending to be dead, her body had already reacted to the touch.  
She could almost feel the bones of her wrist cracking when she tried to fight the metallic hold, but when her hand managed to stop his fingers from doing whatever he was going to do to her, Andromeda could not feel relieved for his failed attempt to take away from her more than just her hope, not when the eyes she had opened to see where his hand was going found the face of her tormentor, a black hole where there should have been his head.  
And even if she knew how useless was for her to scream, even if she knew how pathetic was for her to burst into tears, she could not prevent herself not to do any of these things, to cry as a foolish child, and to let her lips part, freeing the fear that was twisting her inside, but if her soundless voice did not attract the attention of the horrible creature, there was the cold trail of her tears that tinkled to the dirty floor to made the thing aware of her awakening.  
Of her resurrection.  
\- *Useless human.  
Insulted.  
She had just been insulted.  
The horrible way he had just spat the word did not let room for doubts, but Andromeda did not find the strength or the will to feel affronted by whatever he had said to her, because her senses and her eyes were too destabilized by the way the creature kept on chewing words between his rotten teeth to be aware of anything else, because he had no head, but he had a mouth and the sharp teeth of a beast, teeth her eyes could not stop watching moving, clashing and cracking, a revolting display that this time made her really want to throw up, but she could not, not even that time, not with a mouth so dry.  
\- *How did you do it? Tell me!  
Her fingers sunk into the dirty and dark fabric that covered the creature as a cloak of darkness from head to toe when he began to shake her once again, hissing and spitting in her face while trying to extort from her some kind of answers, answers Andromeda, however, failed to give even to herself, not even the most important one, because she should have been dead, but she wasn't.  
She was alive, still breathing, and that was more worrying than what was happening to her.  
She had felt her neck crack, she had felt her heart stop, she was dead whispered her terrified mind to her shattered and confused soul, and Andromeda could not give a sense to it, to her resurrection.  
Or she was simply in hell tried a tiny voice inside her head, a chance her mind almost took into consideration, but no, she wasn't even in hell, she wasn't simply dreaming, she was just stuck, and where and how were the things she should have tried to find out.  
**- Let me go!  
What should have been a thundering demand remained a simple thought in her mind when Andromeda felt a wave of rebellion ran through her veins for the way he kept on tugging her, but she was too weak to be able to make him loosen the hold on her neck, her chipped nails too short to scratch him, to hurt him, but she would have liked to do it, to make him feel pain, the same heartbreaking pain she was feeling now, even if she had never been a wild person, even if she hated to see other people get hurt, but he was chocking her, and not even her soft spirit could not stir and revolt against that.  
A retch went back her throat when the drenching smell of rotting meat penetrated her nostrils, but her teeth remained planted in the dirty fabric she had just bitten to make him let her go, her eyes focused on the putrid dark skin that she was able to see when her canines were able to tear the fabric to let her reach his arm, to sink better.  
Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes when the piercing smell became too much to stand, his skin too sour not to make her tongue retreat and hesitate, a hesitation that the cruel man did not let pass, grabbing her by the hair that he began to pull with so much strength to rip off some of her locks, and it was when she felt the gentle touch of her stripped hair brushing her cheeks that she felt her heart breaking and her arm stinging again.  
It began with a weak itching, an irritating pricking her nails did not try to soothe or relieve, because, instead of weakening the grip to reach her wrist and give her some kind of relief, the hold she had on his arms strengthened, her fingertips now sunk in the skin she finally managed to mark with her nails while her breath began to quicken and follow the thundering in her chest.  
Because more than her inexplicable resurrection, more than her state, her sorrow, her pain, the sight of her hair on the floor made her scream from the inside.  
A scream she could feel reverberating in every fiber of her body, stirring the layer of tears that blurred her vision.  
Her hair.  
He had ripped her hair.  
The hair Alecta had styled with love and kindness to make her pretty.  
The hair Alec used to pull to draw her attention.  
The hair her mother wanted always in order and clean, flawless, but she had failed her.  
She had failed her mother.  
The hard floor welcomed her body when the creature suddenly let go of her, but Andromeda was too lost in her own pain to notice the blinding light now reduced to a pale glow that had surrounded her right arm, or the pained hissing above her head while her trembling hand reached the floor, brushing the pale hair strands she collected in her palms to examine lost in a daze the odd color they had taken.  
White. Her hair had turned white.  
\- *I see.  
That time Andromeda did not lift her chin, she did not look at him, even if she had heard him, even if the way he had spoken made her aware that something was wrong, very wrong, but nothing could be worse than resurrecting after a painful death into a dark world with an evil being as the only living thing with her.  
A pity, really, how naive she still was, because she would have learned soon that there was always something worse, a lesson she had to learn at a high price.  
And the first price to pay would have cost her hope.  
Her sanity.  
When she felt it tighten around her neck, few were the things Andromeda could do apart from gasping and trying to fight his hold on her, her legs that kicked the air with the hope to hit him, the imprint of his fingers so perfect around the fragile line of her throat to make her almost believe that it had always been that way.  
His hands around her neck.  
His fingertips sunk into her skin.  
She on the verge of a painful death.  
The floor welcomed her body once again, without giving her time to pity herself, to catch her breath, to do anything else apart from coughing and crying, and it welcomed her fall many other times after that one.  
One. Ten. Fifty.  
Andromeda lost the count of the times she had fallen to the floor after the sixtieth time, dead, and dead she soon wished to be when she understood what the creature had already realized before her.  
She could not die.  
He could break her neck.  
He could pierce her chest.  
It did not matter. She could not die.  
She would have come back to life every time.  
She could not die, but that did not prevent the dark man to kill her every time, again and again, breaking her neck with the hand Andromeda had tried to avoid at the beginning, to fight back, but she was chained to the floor, and to the floor she, in the end, chose to remain, there was no reason for her to stand up, after all.  
Oh no.  
There was the dark man to make her stand each time, she could not do anything apart from waking up every time as nothing had happened, as she had never been dead, a light scar on her right hand the only broken thing in her apparently immortal body.  
Immortal.  
She would have laughed at the absurd idea if only she had had the time to do it, to let her mouth take a gentler fold instead of the painful crease that followed each of her falls, but then, little by little, the tiny pieces she had been able to collect after every horrible death began to sketch a horrible scenario she soon regretted to have found.  
To have painted.  
Because she had finally seen the light.  
And yes, it was blinding as the story told, dazzling as the legend sang in rhyme, but the wonder never came and never would have come, for her.  
Because every time she had opened her eyes, she had never found a magical place or the desire to smile, but a dark world and the wish to cry.  
She wasn't living a beautiful dream, but an endless nightmare.  
And she had been granted no gift, but a curse.  
A curse that had taken the form of the bracelet her eyes did not leave as her eyelids began to lower and the breath she had recovered was taken back from her lungs and chest, her trembling hand closed protectively on what she had lost along with the hope to be able to go back to her family, to have back her quiet life, to return to how things were before.  
But everything had changed.  
The color of her hair that had turned white.  
The voice that she had lost along with her hope.  
And the throbbing of a heart she felt stop as her eyelids led her to a darkness that, however, Andromeda would have found every time that she had opened her eyes.  
Again and again.

 

°°°

 

***"Fix the inside and the outside will fix itself"  
A favorite song. An inspiring movie.  
Teenagers tended to take courage and boldness from a singer who sang of rebellion or an actor clad with the skin of dead animals who talked of freedom, but for Andromeda, the wise words of a dead German poet had always been the only thing able to make her break free from the temporary state of depression and dejection that had made her lower her head and hide inside her blanket.  
She too was a teenager, after all, and even she had been capricious, she too had felt hopeless.  
Powerless.  
But wasn't that what all teenagers were at their age?  
Powerless, still too young to stand on their own, continually hovering on a thread that could bring them towards adulthood, towards responsibilities, towards mistakes that could not be forgiven easily, actions that could no longer be justified as the result of child's inexperience.  
Ignorance.  
But everything, even the most ridiculous thing seemed insurmountable at that age, an unfaithful boyfriend, a bad vote, strict parents, foolish little things that had never made Andromeda cry, or sad, she had always had to take care of her mother to have time to feel sad for herself, for her unrequited love, for her broken friendship, she had never had the time to cry, not when her eyes had always been too busy to search and fix the cracks into Calisto's lonely gaze to let the tears get caught between her eyelashes.  
So no tears. No sadness, for her. Only a calm smile on her face and a positive attitude to light up her and Calisto's path.  
But now she was alone, her mother a distant figure she could not reach, or touch, or feel beside her, she had no one to fight for, and even if the thought had made her cry with her chin sunk into her chest and her eyes so full of tears to not let her see anything else apart her own misery, her pathetic state, she had come to terms with her unfortunate state, her desperate situation, she had accepted it, and then, she had decided to react, to do what she did best.  
Fix broken things.  
Her broken hope.  
Her broken body.  
That broken world.  
Therefore she had fished out from her numb mind the words that had always made her brave, and strong, and to that words, her broken mind had held on, because she was trying to fix things, little by little, one step at a time.  
She had succeeded in fixing her broken mind with the awareness that she could not come back, that she was stuck there, that she had to face reality, as far as the reality she had to face was beyond any human's understanding  
Because she had been thrown into another world. She had been left alone with an evil being as her jailer.  
She had been cursed, just as in one of the stories she liked to read.  
Cursed by deities for a whim, for an obsession, for unrequited love.  
There were many tales of a young, lovely woman cursed by some capricious god for a ridiculous reason, but they were just that, tales, legends, imaginary, unreal, and even if she was young, even she could be lovely, she knew no god, she had met no deity, just Kai.  
Gentle, quiet Kai.  
Kai, who had melted between her arms like snow in the sun.  
Kai, who had never answered her calls.  
To her pleas of help.  
Because she had tried to call him many times, of course, she had called him, even without a voice, even if it could seem foolish given that he was the reason why she was there and not in her world, but Kai had always been a special existence she had never been able to ignore.  
To let go.  
Yet, he had not answered. Not even once. Not even after all the times she had screamed out his name, and maybe someone else in her place would have given up, but not her.  
She had kept on calling him, on whispering his name in the hope that he would have answered, because he would have answered.  
He would have heard her call.  
He was her friend, her confidant, he was her family, and if there was one thing she had learned in her life was that you could never betray or leave your family.  
Therefore she wouldn't have left him, she would not have betrayed his faith in her, in her ability, in what she could do.  
"It is meant for you, Andromeda."  
Her eyes searched for the bracelet on her wrist when his cryptic sentence returned to make her reflect on what was meant for her, snatching her a sad smile.  
Be enslaved was meant for her?  
What did he mean with it?  
What exactly did he expect from her?  
Unfortunately, she had not been able to answer, to give herself an explanation, not even after two weeks of pondering and crying, not even after taking back her sanity, her hope, keeping on fix things and herself meantime.  
But how could she know how much time had passed?  
Two weeks were, after all, a definite amount of time difficult to count without a clock, a phone or the sun, but the moon had been enough for Andromeda to estimate the passing of time.  
Odd, really, how she could tell the passing of days just by watching the position of the moon in the sky, but she could, and not because she was a scout leader, or because she had an enviable sense of orientation, it was quite the opposite, because she had none, but she liked to read, and once, she had read in a book how to read the stars, so to be prepared if her and her mother had been lost somewhere.  
Calisto had always told her that she tended to imagine strange things too often, as if they could be lost somewhere, but she was lost, and she had thanked whatever deity existed in that world for the moon, because the dark world seemed devoid of any kind of light, and the thought to be left in the darkness had made her cry more than one night.  
So she had been grateful for the moon and, above all, for the forgetful student of astronomy who had left in their hotel some old books of his university.  
Thanks to the heavens she had never been picky about her readings.  
Her mother had been right, in the end, she was a know-it-all, but for the first time in her life she wasn't feeling ashamed to be called like that, because it was thanks to her knowledge that she could feel, if not happy, at least a little relieved, more confident, even if she knew that her mother had never appreciated her love towards books and knowledge, since she was so pretty not to need something like that, Calisto's exact words, but it was thanks to them that she could let go a little of her desperation, that she was able to stand up from her kneeling condition.  
They were what they were, and she was proud to be what she had always been, a young girl who liked to be ready for anything, who had learned to react to desperate situation, and she was in a desperate situation, maybe, the most desperate one, but there was only one thing you could do when you reached the bottom.  
Going up again.  
You could do nothing apart from that, even if you would have had to face again what had made you fall, and just as it had already happened in her life, it had not been a thing what had made her fall, but something else, something she still could not define, but what she had started to call dark man.  
Original, wasn't she?  
Dark man.  
Between all the name she could have given him she had chosen that one, but after all, wasn't that what he was?  
Dark and a man, even if Andromeda knew, deep down, that he was not even a man, he was just…something else.  
Something darker, something rotten, something that should have been buried in the ground, but well, neither of them could die, apparently.  
They were both cursed, both forsaken, both alone, alone how Andromeda had never felt in her life, because there had always been someone to fix, she had always had Calisto to help, to love, to save, but this time the only one who had to be saved was herself.  
She had to save herself.  
She had to protect her broken mind and shattered heart from who would have tried to break her again, from something evil, from a darkness she had already faced when she was still a child.  
Dark man.  
She had used that nickname before, and she had chosen to use it again because she had read in a book of psychology that it was easier for a disoriented mind to associate something foreign with something familiar to make a crazy situation simpler to take without breaking down.  
So she had done the same thing, she had associate something foreign with something familiar, and even if it was a little insane to call her tormentor with the nickname she had given to her father she had done it anyway.  
Hans Wolfstang.  
Her father's name, an arrogant name for an arrogant man.  
Andromeda had never liked her father, not even once, not even when she was little, when it was simple for a daughter to fall in love with her father, but she had never felt love for him, only bitterness, aversion, and once she had grown, she had shown small signs of hatred when she had seen how coldly and cruelly he treated her fragile mother, and cold he had always been, even with her.  
It could seem cruel on her part, but Andromeda firmly believed that her father could not love anything.  
He was simply devoid of any kind of love. It was simple like that.  
Hard-hearted and cold, but beautiful.  
Oh yes. Hans had always been a beautiful man, a beautiful man full of beautiful promises who her mother had followed blindly when she had been too young and too naive to understand how shallow and dark was the soul hidden behind his white smile and sharp grey eyes.  
At fifteen Calisto had fled from her land in search of fortune, of fame, too beautiful for her little village, too full of hope and dreams to remain in her little island.  
She had run away from home, she had become a wanderer, and in her wandering, she had found him.  
Her father.  
Hans was a famous photograph, but a useless man, a liar.  
He loved beautiful things like him, and when he had seen her mother he had fallen in love with her golden hair, her skin kissed by the sun and her exotic beauty, not with her wild heart, not with her fragile soul, he had loved the shape in the mirror, but when he had seen the fragility hidden in her beautiful body he had lost interest.  
Troublesome.  
The word had become a refrain on her father's full lips.  
She could not recall how many times he had used the word to address her mother, but she knew that they had been a lot, and when Calisto had shown sign of pregnancy, he had used the words to address both of them, calling them troublesome, a waste of his time.  
Of space.  
Cruel. Cold. Heartless.  
A dark man.  
Hans was a cruel man capable only of cruel words and cruel actions, not so different from who she had met in that world, actually, they were more similar than she liked to admit, to accept.  
So he had become the first familiar thing into a foreign place, and she had become less frightened, less disoriented, more vigilant, pragmatic, and it was in the searching of another familiar thing that she had found something else to associate with her world, with her life.  
At first, she had mistaken him for a heap of dirt, nothing strange or absurd given the pitiful state of her prison and herself, but when she had seen it move, she had understood that what she was watching wasn't a mass of garbage, but a person, an old, wounded man chained to the ground, and pity had been the first thing she had felt after a spark of hope had begun to burn in her chest once she had understood that she wasn't alone.  
That she wasn't the only one there.  
Pitiful weren't them?  
She, chained to the floor without a voice to use to call out for help and him, so small and thin to fall to pieces at any puff of air.  
She had tried to catch his attention of course.  
She had no voice, alright, but she could still throw rocks, but the small one she had thrown at him had not made him look up from the ground he was staring at so intensely.  
Unfortunately, she did not have a good aim, the first one had been lucky, but she wasn't a lucky person in the first place, and the rocks she had thrown after the first one had not even reached him, had not touched him or made him flinch, so she had changed tactics.  
She had reached the pool of dark water from which the dark man had pulled her out, and she had gathered in her palm as much as water as she could to be able to make it splash near him, the unmoving man, but again, he had ignored her.  
Maybe he had become deaf just as she had become mute, but when she felt more than heard the chilly air that preceded the arrival of the dark man, her eyes caught it, the stiffening of his shoulder, even if he kept on staring at the ground, even if the darkness was treacherous, but her eyes had become used to it, and she had seen him move, she had seen him react to his presence.  
\- *Have you become a little more collaborative, human?  
Andromeda quickly recovered her place against the wall when she saw him move towards her, her legs close to her chest and one hand placed protectively around her throat where she knew his fingers were aiming to take away her breath and life, but even if the dark man seemed to know more about her bracelet and the strange blinding light that it emanated, she had understood something too in two weeks, and when she felt his finger brush her cheek she did not flinch when she felt the sting on her wrist, actually, she had expected it, and, judging by the way the dark man had already retreated the hand he had expected it too.  
\- *I see.  
\- **Go to hell!  
Her lips moved, but no voice came out, not that she expected to have her voice magically back, but she needed to vent her anger, and cursing him helped her to feel less hopeless, less pitiful, defenseless, even if she was still pitiful, still hopeless, but defenseless? Not so much.  
Because she had discovered something she could use to keep him at bay, to make him back away when she wanted to be left alone, and even if her power did not prevent him to pierce her with a sword or let her bleed to death she, at least, had succeeded on not being touched directly by him.  
What a pathetic power then if she could not even free herself or really defeat him, but it was obvious that having your own body embraced by a burning blinding light wasn't something she could use to get free.  
Actually, it was already difficult trying to control it, the burning.  
She had failed many times, but finally, she had learned what made it burn, what awakened the bracelet and its blinding light.  
The stirring of her soul.  
The light reacted to her emotion, her distress, the scream of her soul, and before learning to control the burning she had had to learn to control her emotion, to fix the inside, something easy, something foolish, but it was not easy to be in control of your emotions after being tortured for weeks, with a body that could not die but a mind that could remember everything the day after.  
Every opened gash in her chest.  
Every breath lost in her fall.  
Every tear shared on the dirty floor.  
But now her eyes were dry, her chest stitched up, and her breathing steady as she watched the dark with fear, yes, but even bravery.  
Strength.  
He has no eyes, no face, but she knew that there must be something under all that darkness, he had to have something her eyes could pierce or cut, she had made him bleed from his arm, she could make him see that, even if still afraid, she could fight him.  
She could challenge him.  
\- *You are not the only one I can make scream.  
Her eyes did not leave him as the dark man gave his back to her, a strange action that made her stiffen a little, because she wasn't used to seeing it, his back, he was always facing her when he was ready to strike and she could always say when he intended to strike, and he was going to, she knew it, she could see him getting ready to slash with his sword, but what, was something she could not understand, she could not see, not when she should have.  
Because if she had been able to tell what he was going to strike, if she had been more farsighted, if she had been less brave and more attentive, she would have understood who would have taken her place, what flesh his blade was going to cut, and when she saw the dark man raising his arm, she saw them shimmering in the darkness in front of her.  
The old man's sky blue eyes.  
Open. Scared. And now focused on her face as he was begging her to help him.  
To make him stop.  
To save him.  
\- **Stop!  
Her voice did not come out, her despair did not come out, her pain, did not come out, but she kept on screaming, and when she felt the sickening smell of blood filling the air she stood up from the ground, her knees shaking, her chest burning and her eyes full of tears she drank when she opened her lips to scream again, to beg him to stop.  
\- **Please! Leave us alone!  
The chains that kept her prisoner to the wall stopped to tingle when she heard the scream, but her lips had stopped moving, her throat had stopped burning, yet, the cry still echoed in her head, in her soul, a childish broken pleading she felt pushing and break the glossy surface of her eyes, the trembling line of her mouth.  
Because she had begged her father to stop calling them a waste of time, of space, just as she was begging the dark man to leave him alone, to spare him!  
She had begged him to let her free, to let her be, not to stab her mother with his cruel words that made her cry, that made her bleed to death.  
She had begged, she had even kneeled in front of him, just as she was kneeling now, her trembling hands to her chest, her desperate gaze on the back she tried to touch, to grab, but she could not reach him, not with her voice, not with her fingers.  
She could do nothing but watching someone bleed to death once again.  
Because she was alone.  
She was broken.  
She was stuck, but there was something she could do, something foolish, something useless, but something, and if burning was the only thing she could do, then she would have burned as she had never done before.  
Andromeda clenched her teeth when she felt her arm sting, when she asked for it, prayed for it to became stronger, to follow the thundering in her heart, the throbbing in her eyes, but it was not enough, the blue light was too weak, a faint glow she tried to strengthen to attract the attention of the dark man and save the man she now could see on the floor, a trail of blood on his temple and his eyes blurred by the tears she could feel rolling on her own cheek, but he kept on watching her, on searching her desperate gaze just as she had tried to do with his.  
To meet his eyes.  
Not to be left alone.  
To find something to watch besides the void and her own misery.  
And she did not avert her gaze, she did not turn her face, she stared at him, she let him cling to her trembling self just as she clung to the desperation she felt rising in her throat, in her chest.  
Why me?  
Andromeda had never been able to answer that question, not even after all those weeks, not even with all the things she knew, not even after having accepted her new reality, her new world.  
Her state.  
Why her?  
Why did she have to be there, to face death, to be cursed, to watch someone else die?  
She wasn't someone special, she was only herself, boring, talkative, dreamer Andromeda.  
She wasn't strong.  
She wasn't powerful.  
She wasn't magical.  
She was just…her.  
She was not enough.  
Why me?  
\- **The real question you have to ask yourself, my dear, is why not you?  
The flame around her kneeled form faltered when she heard it echoing in the air, a faraway whisper her gaze followed to the dark pool of water she had seen stir a little, a trembling surface on which her eyes stopped, his name still stuck in the throat filled with the tears she tried not to shed, not now, or else she would have lost him, and she could not lose him.  
Not again.  
\- **Kai?  
She was talking to a pool of dark water.  
A trembling smile touched her lips when the thought reached her disoriented mind, and maybe, she would have thought to have gone mad for something like this, but too many strange things had happened in her life, and talking with a pool of water was the most harmless of them all.  
What she did not expect, however, was that someone would have answered to her voiceless call, but Kai had always been the only one able to answer to question she had only thought and never asked aloud.  
\- **I am here, my dearest. Forgive me for my delay.  
He was there. Kai was there.  
\- **What…Where are you? Where are we? What-  
\- **One question at time, my dear. I am not strong enough to answer them at once.  
When she heard the shift of air in front of her Andromeda knew that he was in front of her, that she had attracted his attention, that the other prisoner was safe, but she kept on looking at the dark pool of water, tightening between her bruised fingers the ruined fabric of her dress to give herself strength, courage.  
One question.  
He had asked her to ask one question at a time, and even if there were many things she wanted to ask, even if she was still a little angry at him, there was one thing she wanted to know for sure.  
The one thing she died to ask.  
\- **A..are you alright?  
The silence that followed her trembling thought made her fear that she had lost him, that she had been left alone, again, but when she heard it, his warm and fond voice, she felt her heart tremble for the joy.  
\- **I am fine, my love. I am simply lost.  
Love.  
She had been called that way just once, but that time had been enough for her to decide that whatever was going to come, whatever they had to face in the future, she would have always protected Calisto.  
She would have always followed and loved her fragile mother.  
She could still remember the trembling of Calisto's hand as she caressed her cheek in front of the airport, both of them ready to leave behind a dark man and a dark past, how soft and light was her voice when she called Andromeda to make her look up and meet the teary eyes she had placed on her, how fragile was the small smile she had addressed to her before calling her, her only true love.  
A lonely tear rolled down her cheek when she recalled the memory, but all the fondness was lost when she felt the dark man bend towards her, towards her neck.  
Andromeda gritted her teeth when she felt his hand close around her throat, but she ignored him, she let him trap her.  
He could strangle her if she wanted to, he could slash her with his sword if he wanted to, but she would have listened to Kai until the end, she would have had her answer, and she would not have let go. No.  
Not that time. Not again.  
When the dark man lift her from the ground she did not fight back, she did not turn her face to look at him, to see his rotten teeth, to feel his nauseous breath against her cheek, she kept on staring at the dark water, she kept on asking questions, she kept on acting brave, daring, but all the bravery she was trying to collect, all the relief she had gathered left her when Kai's words, Kai's answers give a sense to all that madness and a name to the creature she finally returned to watch with what she had never felt in that dark world.  
Recognition.  
Tears gathered in the corner of her eyes when she began to give a sense to his shape, a meaning to his darkness, when she succeeded in recognizing him and the world that surrounded her, because she had always loved books, she had read whatever she could, and she had read even that one, she had read even about him, what should have been the offspring of a fantasy, of an old tale, the character of a book, but the hand he had just placed on her head was real.  
The breath that made her lashes tremble was real, the lips Andromeda felt smiling against her cheek when he made the side of their faces touch was real.  
He was real.  
\- *You know me.  
His words were lost in the whirlpool of fear, shock, and pain that was breaking her mind again, even Kai's warning was lost among the madness that was returning to crush her sanity, and when she felt his fingers sunk into her skull even her breath was lost before she felt something crush her head.  
Her mind.  
The first wave of pain made her squint her eyes so hard to felt her eyelashes mark the tender skin above her cheeks, but when she felt the second wave of pain push, her hands ran to the fingers that were trying to crush her skull while a row of images flashed quickly in her mind, images she had not called back, she had not wished to see.  
A high mountain surrounded by mist.  
The shadow of a giant, red dragon.  
And a little man.  
Short, with auburn curled hair and a brave gaze.  
A great destiny.  
And a simple name to remember.  
To learn.  
-**No.  
Her legs began to kick the air while her hand tried to loosen his grip on her head and everything inside her began to scream in horror for what he had seen, for the shattered pieces of something he should not have known, something he was trying to pull out of her brain, crushing her mind, making her scream in horror for what he knew.  
For what she had done.  
When the column of light pierced the dark sky of Dol Guldur, many eyes turned where no one dared to look, not even the bravest one, not where only darkness could be found, but anyone in Middle Earth had seen it burn in the sky before disappearing as nothing had happened, the fain trawl of light Andromeda kept on radiating when she hit the floor, the dark man now gone, but not her pain.  
Not her horror.  
\- **Go.  
When Kai's anxious whisper reached her ears, Andromeda looked up from the ground she could not leave behind, just as that place, just as her guilt, her sin, but when she moved her hand to cover her trembling lips she noticed that no handcuffs were on her wrist.  
That she was free.  
Even before her eyes could adjust to the darkness her legs had brought her towards the stairs she began to descend before something made her stop and return back.  
A shadow of pain flashed in her eyes when she saw the old, bruised man shrinking when he saw her kneeling in front of him, his awed and fearful sky blue eyes a stab Andromeda welcomed with a small smile, bringing her still burning hands on his wrist.  
\- **We should leave before he comes back.  
The eyes Thàrin son of Thròr had closed on seeing her reaching for him opened wide when he seemed to hear the whispering of her soul, a soul Andromeda was trying to keep whole as she helped the wounded dwarf to rise on his shaking legs, charging her body of his weigh as both of them left the barred ground, descending the dark, broken stairs Andromeda ate up with fast steps, almost as she was running.  
But she was running.  
She was running away from the dark man she could feel whispering in the chilly air words that cut her inside as he regained his strength, as he changed his soul into a storm, a storm that did not follow them.  
And she began to really run that time.  
She stopped a second just to make Thàrin climb on her back, a weight that would have slowed her steps and made them easy prey of the dark man, if only he had decided to follow them.  
But he was not following them.  
He was following something else, someone else, and it was all her fault.  
The rock cut the tender skin of her feet as she glided between the ruins of Dol Guldur, but she never stopped, she would have never stopped, she would have kept on running away.  
Away from the darkness that would have returned to haunt her broken heart.  
Away from the awareness to have just condemned an innocent man to a painful death.

 

 

 

°°°  
When the first knock echoed between the colored, domestic walls of his home, Bilbo Baggings decided to think nothing of it, not to begin to imagine things, to simply identify the unusual noise as the howling of the wind that had started to blow outside his house, nothing more, nothing less.  
When he heard it a second time, however, his lips hesitated on the edge of the porcelain cup he was going to bring to his mouth, his eyes focused on the golden, warm tea inside which he could see himself frown.  
Had it just been a knock then? He asked himself, annoyed.  
It was midnight, after all, and he was not expecting anyone, of course, he was annoyed.  
So he chose again to think nothing of it, to drink his tea in peace, it had been a stressful day after all, and he was feeling too cozy with the warmth of his chimney to leave his comfy armchair.  
Let the wind howl all it wanted, he would have drunk his tea before going to bed, that was what Bilbo Baggings intended to do, what he was going to do as he placed his cup on the bedside table, stretching his numb limbs in front of the flames before frowning when he heard it a third time, the damned knock.  
Grumbling under his breath, the drowsy hobbit took an old candelabrum from the table to enlight the path that led to his front door, an annoyed grimace to make him look less hospitable and more grumpy than a hobbit should have been, but he has was not expecting any guest, therefore, there was no reason to be hospitable as he always was with his guest, not at that hour and not with unbidden guest.  
A shiver shook his form while one of his hand ran to close his robes to protect him from the icy wind that had just invaded his home, his eyes focused on the thick and unusual darkness that engulfed the garden where nothing moved. Not even a leaf.  
What awful weather.  
His eyes left alone the dark sky he was watching to come back where obviously he found no one.  
Because he was alone, he was a fool.  
Cursing for the second time, Bilbo began to close his door, but even before his fingers could leave the door handle, a strange noise made him raise up from the ground a pair of peevish eyes.  
\- I am beginning to get angry, you know? - he shouted to the icy wind when his sensitive hearing caught another strange sound, and all the calm he was trying to keep was soon replaced by anger.  
Irritation.  
\- Did you hear me?  
No voice followed his shout, only the howling of the wind that had become icier, biting.  
Because it was too cold, too dry, and he was too tired to let the wind trick his mind.  
With a heavy sigh, Bilbo Baggings decided to return to his bed, to finally rest, and he was going to, he was really going to do it if he had not heard again the same, odd sound that this time made him spring towards it.  
\- Where are you hiding? Come out if you have the courage! I am not scared of you – he shouted to the darkness, moving the candelabrum in a circle to see if his eyes could see something, anything, but he could not find anything while getting angrier, more annoyed. Frustrated.  
\- Did you hear me? I am not scared of you!  
\- You should have.  
When the candelabrum hit the ground, no flame risked to burn to ashes the shiny grass of the well-kept garden, because even before they could reach the soil, the flames had already been turned off, and maybe, if they had kept on burning, some sleepless resident of Hobbiton would have found the courage to face the awful weather to see why Bilbo Baggings's garden was on fire.  
But no flame was left, no one tried to leave their house, and Bilbo Baggings would have been found dead only the day after, when it would have been too late to help him.  
To save him.

 

***The sentence I used is of Herman Hesse.

*Black speech

**Soul's voice

Here we are!

 

Until the next chapter!


	3. Chapter 3

Her heart was throbbing.

Her legs were burning.

Her breath was missing.

_She kept on sobbing._

And yet, Andromeda did not feel tired, she did not feel worn-out as she should have been, not even after running for so long.

So far.

No. Andromeda wasn't feeling tired, she wasn't feeling anything, at the moment.

She was simply running. Running without a destination, running without a purpose, just…running.

And it did not matter where her bare feet sunk.

Soil. Grass. Mud.

Her feet did not slow down. They did not come to a stop. They kept on moving, on bringing her shattered soul where she could have found rest, even if she did not need it. To rest. To breath. To eat. To drink.

She did not need anything like that to keep on running, she did not need what a person needed _to keep on living._

Because she died, many, many times, and she, she was no longer alive.

She was no longer a human, _she was something else_ , now.

Something that was breathing without needing it.

Something that was walking without having a reason to do it.

Something that could feel nothing anymore, nothing, except the pain.

Because she could still feel it shaking her bones, biting her cheeks, squeezing her chest.

A pain so shattering to make her eyes sting and her throat tighten, but a pain that no food, or drink or could satiate or fix, because it was from the inside, that Andromeda was bleeding, was breaking, piece after piece.

Not her body.

But her heart.

_Her soul._

The only thing the dark man had not been able to reach in time to crush it in his hold.

A surprised sob escaped her dry lips when she crashed to the ground, her left foot caught beneath the roots of an old tree while the shadow on her back remained still, his skeletal hands still clutched around her frail limbs as the claws of a scared, small bird.

The damp earth welcomed her hot breath as she stared at the ground with her limbs forsaken on her sides, her hair a dirty crown of pale, wild waves to cover her small back like a blanket of soft snow.

And for a moment, just for a moment, Andromeda contemplated the idea to lie down on the damp ground and let the tree around her burying her body under a layer of leaves and broken twigs, _to be forgotten_ , because no one knew her, there. Because no one cared for her, there.

No one cared if she was dead or alive. _If she was still breathing._

No one knew she was there.

And she could not let tears stream down her face for her cruel fate.

**_How curious._ **

Andromeda had always hoped for a chance like that. For an adventure, _like that._

And yet, now that she had it, now that she could live it, she didn't want it anymore.

Capricious, wasn't she now?

_Middle-earth._

She had been thrown in Middle-earth.

How many times had she read of that magical place?

How many times had she imagined to be one of the fictional character described as the tenth walker of the fellowship of the ring?

**Too many.**

And yet, despite all that, Andromeda could not feel elated by the chance to meet elves, dwarfs, kings and queens.

Because it was different from how things should have been, from how she had dreamed things should have been, if she had had the chance to become a book's character, if she had had the chance to be the hero.

But no kind elf had found her.

No eccentric wizard had come to her aid.

No brave dwarf had lifted his ax in her name.

She had no one, there.

She was alone, _and she had just killed a man._

Darkness welcomed her stinging eyes when the horrific thought made her wish to be able to conceal in the dark of her eyelids what she had done, to be forgotten along with her sins in the ground, to be buried with everything else, but she could not do anything of that.

Because, even if the leaves had granted her wish to be buried, even if time would have let her be tangled in its spiral and be forgotten, she would have remembered everything.

The world she had lost.

The people she had left.

The painful awareness that she could not die, no matter how much she wished for it, how much she craved for it, and she had craved it, death, many, many times, without never achieving it, in the end.

Because she would have survived everything despite the pain that would have broken her heart, despite the loneliness that would have shattered her soul, believing, every time, to be on the verge of dying without actually doing it.

Dying.

Because people could die from loneliness, for a broken heart, a shattered dreams, but Andromeda had always prevented to fall prey of it, of the loneliness and despair that had filled her eyes whenever she had looked at the mirror, trying to smile to the disoriented teenager who was always crying, always sobbing, always looking back at her with fatigue, but she had her mother, they had each other, she had someone to take care of.

But now?

What did she have now?

Nothing except herself, and Andromeda did not know what to do with her broken self, now, if not falling to pieces and let the world around her whirling without her in its cruel dance.

_A fool_ , she had been a fool when she had thought to be able to do it, to believe, that she could survive the pain.

Because she could not.

_It was too much._

Too much to take without going mad.

Too much to believe without losing herself.

Too much to bear without falling to her knees and crying out for mercy. _For help._

A help no one would have given to her.

Not even a single hand.

So she could not do it. She simply…didn't want to do it, not anymore.

That world wasn't hers, after all.

_Those people weren't even real._

That one wasn't her reality, it was a fantasy. **A book.**

A book she had just ruined killing its hero.

_A destroyer_ , that was what she was, at the moment, for the people of that world, a bringer of death and misfortune, not a savior as one of the fanfictions she had read, not the heroine she had always wanted to be.

She had not been able to wield a sword or to hold a bow, or a dagger, to protect herself and defeat the enemy, only a couple of rocks to throw that had not even hit what she had wanted to hit.

Her moves had not been graceful, agile, or swift, as she ran for safety, she had just tripped, after all, on something that had not even moved or had tried to make her trip.

And the power she had received, the painful burning she was learning to control wasn't something she could use to really defend herself, even if she knew, now, how dangerous Kai's gift was in reality.

_One of the Silmaril._

Kai had entrusted her one of Arda's treasures, something no one should have had, especially not a human from another world, especially not someone as clumsy as her, and yet, she still had it, despite everything else.

However, what made her so feel hopeless, what made her feel so shattered and beaten wasn't the possession she had, the curse she had received, but the man who had entrusted it to her, the question she kept on addressing to herself with a trembling voice.

Was Kai really a man, a human?

A friend?

And if not? What would have she done?

Scolding him?

Threatening him?

No, not even if she had now the power to make him feel the same pain she was feeling Andromeda would have brought him harm, because, even if it was pathetic, even if it was insane, she still trusted him, she still wanted to believe in him, in the end.

Because even if he was not human, even if his name wasn't really Kai, she would have waited for him to explain himself, his actions, before calling him a faker.

A traitor.

Because he was still her family. He was still someone she had loved for years, and despite the pain, the anger and the despair, she could not bring herself to hate him completely.

_\- Believe me when I say that you are the only one suitable for this._

**Suitable.**

Kai had always been a wise man, full of knowledge and kindness, a man who acted only with a purpose, only with a reason, who did not speak unless he had a reason to speak, and there had to be a reason behind all that, behind his gift, his choice, his words.

Her being there.

She knew it, _she wanted to believe it_ , therefore, what she really needed at the moment weren't kind words, but answers.

She needed to find him, to save him from whatever prevented him to reach her, but… she did not have the strength, now.

She was feeling tired, even if knew that she could still run for miles if she wanted to, the fact was that…she didn't want to do it.

To get up.

Not now. _Not yet._

She wanted to bask in her own misery for a little while. _**She needed it.**_

_To break_ , because only when everything was broken and shattered to the ground she could have tried to recompose the pieces, to pull herself together.

However, when Andromeda felt something sliding on her back, she could not prevent herself to stiffen before remembering that she was not alone, that she had involved someone else in her journey towards destruction and death, the wounded dwarf who fell on her side with a heavy breathing and unfocused eyes.

Reaching him was an instinct Andromeda could not contain, and when she felt the cold skin under her fingertips, she sunk her knees in the ground, levering on her elbow to lift herself from the ground, rushing towards the small, rackety body curled on himself as an undernourished child.

Gingerly, she helped the man to roll on his side, and she could not let a gasp of horror to leave her lips when she saw what the dark man had done to him.

What Sauron had done to Thràin, the King Under the Mountain.

And despite how unsettling still was for her knowing them, knowing what would have been, what had been before, _that they were real_ , Andromeda could only take the man in her arms and weeping as she caressed gently the sweaty face of the dwarf she had read about.

The book had never told them what Sauron had done to him, how long the King had been tortured, but judging from what she was seeing, the damage was irremediable, and yet, he was still alive, he was still breathing heavily in her arms.

Even if he should have died.

Even if Gandalf would have found him on the verge of death.

But here he was, now, his vacant gaze focused on the sky above their head before leaving the dark cloud and focusing on her crying face, and it was then, that something changed in his eyes, that they came alive.

_\- You are safe now._

Andromeda did not know the reason why she whispered those words in her mind, if she was trying to comfort him or herself, if she wanted to be understood, nor she knew what to expect from him, but when Thàrin's rough and skeletal hand touched gently her shoulder before falling to the ground, his eyes now more present, more lucid, a small, trembling smile touched her lips while her hands gently caressed his battered face, shielding him with her own small body from the icy wind that began to howl around their lonely forms.

Andromeda shivered a little, but she was not really cold, her body was just acting according to its memory, to what it would have done when grazed by cold air, but if she could not really suffer for the chilly air and the trawl of the torture, the man in her arms could.

Thràin began to shiver in her arms, and to cough blood, to lose clarity, to surrender, but Andromeda would not have let him.

_She would not have allowed the dwarf to die._

Even if it was not right, if it was not in the book, _even if he was destined to die_ , but many things had already changed, the story had already been altered, because of her, and despite her fear, she would have taken responsibility.

She would have paid her debt with that world.

Because Thràin would have survived, he, who could still return to his family, unlike her.

He, who could still be saved, unlike her.

Slowly, Andromeda stood up with the dwarf still clutched in her arms, her eyes still shiny for the tears she kept on shedding, but her lips did not quiver, her cheeks did not tense, and when she crouched on her heels to let the dwarf curl on her back, the hand she used to hold him did not shake, did not waver.

Because she could be lost, she could be cursed, she could be tailed by an evil entity, but she could still try to seek redemption, to repay her debt to that world.

She would have protected the dwarf who should have died for the hobbit who, instead, should have lived in his place, she would have brought him home, and then, she would have tried to find the ring and Kai, to fix what she had broken, and then, only then she would have chosen a place where let herself be buried, be forgotten and, finally, _where to yield._

 

°°° 

 

 

Gandalf the Grey had never considered himself an easy prey of worry and disquiet.

He did worry, sometimes, but only when the time was as obscure as a starless sky, and only when troubling things happened at once, and indeed, troubling things had happened the previous night, more than what the wizard could let pass without frowning and quicken his steps at the same time.

When he had felt the wind hissing and the ground shaking as he skirted the lonely, dark road, he had put no mind to the stirring of Middle-earth.

Theirs were dark days, after all, and the earth stirred from time to time to the vicious and revolting presence that trampled on its ground, but when his eyes had been blinded by the flash of light that had torn the sky as a dark canvas and the ground had opened beneath his feet into a long, jagged crack that led to West, he had caught the hidden meaning.

The warning and the calling.

And there he was now, worried, a troubled frown to make him look older and wearier, heavy steps to led him up the marble stairs of the etheral, elfic city that he had reached on top of Shadowfax few minutes before, strengthless and breathless, a breath that the wizard recovered from the depth of his burning lungs when his eyes recognized the fair-haired lady-elf Lord Elrond was keeping from falling to the ground into a pool of white, soft silk.

\- My lady!

When Gandalf the Grey kneeled before the Lady of the Light, a soft smile graced Galadriel's beautiful features as her pale eyelids fluttered, her starry, pained eyes now softer and lighter at the sight of the troubled expression of the Maiar.

\- I was waiting for you, Mithrandir.

Gently, the old wizard reached for the bare shoulders of the pale lady, his heart heavy and his voice pained as he helped Galadriel to stand on her feet, his anxious gaze never leaving the stiff line of her delicate jaw.

\- And here I am, my lady – he whispered softly, catching the pale, trembling hand the elf-lady was approaching to his face - What happened to you?

Something dark flashed in the clear eyes of Nenya's bearer, something Galdalf caught with uneasiness before Galadriel could hide the concern that had scratched the limpid surface of her gaze, but the wizard had seen it, and even if Lord Elrond didn't seem inclined to request an answer from the trembling lady, the wizard was too troubled to let the matter slip away.

\- What happened? – the old wizard pressed in a tight voice, holding the hand Galadriel had tried to hide beneath the golden hair that encircled her form as a halo of light to camouflage the tremor that still shook her form and her gaze – _What did you see?_

The hard look Elrond directed to him did not prevent the Maiar to keep his eyes sharp, his frown dark, his voice as cold as steel, not when the mightest and fairest of the Elves seemed distraught for something, something that Gandalf knew, was linked to the flash of light that had burned the sky, something so horrible to scare her, somehow.

\- What did you see, my lady?

\- The lady is exhausted, Mithrandir, as you can obviously see. You knew better than anyone how wearing her foresight could be.

\- Indeed, my lord. Indeed – the Maiar hummed under his breath and long beard, his voice low and dark - However, I fear that the matter at hand could not be disregarded any longer, my lord.

\- And I think that you are going too far, Mithrandir.

\- He is right. We can't waste time.

When Galadriel musical voice filled the chilly air, nor Elrond or Gandalf were prepared to see the fair lady reaching one of the pillars of marble with shaky steps, finding against the cold stone solace from the burning of the eyelids she let fall upon her broken gaze.

A gaze she let travel beyond her heavy eyelids, towards the golden skyline, beside the towering lines of the mountains, within the greenwoods where the elf could hear the leaves stirring and the trees whispering while a small figure ran amid the old roots, each one of her quick steps a small, imperceptible quiver she could feel reverberated in the air, in the ground.

In the depths of an abyss where dangerous and dark things laid.

\- The Silmaril had found a bearer.

When the Lady of the Light let the whisper leave her beautiful lips, not a sound could be heard apart from the deafening silence in which the earth seemed to have entrenched itself, as it was holding its breath waiting for something to happen, for someone to speak, to ask what no one wanted to ask.

To know.

\- A bearer.

Elrond's voice had been a faint, startled whisper, faint enough to be mistaken for a gust of warm wind, a trick of his tired mind, but Gandalf the Grey had heard him.

The Lord's troubled voice.

Galadriel's unspoken words.

The quivering of the ground.

The whispering in the air.

The wild thundering in his heart.

A heart the wizard felt going up his throat when he dared to speak again, to ask what the Lady wanted for him to do, a demand the Maiar accepted without a word as he began to descend the marble stairs of Rivendell with more than worry to trouble his spirit, this time.

Because dread was what made his steps quick and his limbs stiff, the ruined brim of his old hat to hide the shaking of lips the old wizard tightened into a hard line while, around him, the clattering of clogs made him aware not to be alone in his quest, in their race against time.

Because the Maiar knew, even without inquiring about, that someone else before the Lady had already demanded the same thing, the same quest, a quest at the end of which the wizard and the elves he heard trotting along his side would have brought the Silmaril's bearer to safety in Rivendell, if they had been able to find her before who, besides them, wanted the power she carried.

A power no mortal being should have had in that world, not even the mightest of the Kings, because it would not have been for her safety that soldiers would have been sent to the ends of the world, it would not have been in her defense that they would have risen their swords, it would not have been for her well-being that people would have fought, and, it would not have been her friendship what they would have wanted, asked for.

Claimed.

But her submission.

_Her blood._

And despite Galadriel's hope and the reassuring presence of the elves at his side, Gandalf the Grey didn't know if they would have been the one to reach her first, or if, in the end, it wasn't already too late for them to save her and themselves from the advancing darkness he could feel clinging on his robes and soul.

 

 

°°°°

 

 

Andromeda discovered soon that she had never really realized what _being dirty_ meant until she had found herself covered in mud, dry blood, soil and dust, but before, she had never had the chance to run through thick woods, or climbing steep mountains or passing through sewage swamps.

She had read of that kind of challenges in one of her books, if she remembered right, Hercules had done something like that in one of his labors, but she was no demigod, she was simply a small girl with a dwarf on her back and a magical item to light up the path whenever she let frustration come over her.

And during her journey, she had let it come over her more than a couple of times.

Because, even if she did not need to rest, or sleep, or eat and drink, the dwarf needed all of those things, something she had tried to obtain without success, because she was no hunter, she was no explorer, she had just read something about hunting and how old races used to provide their own food with primitive tools, food she would have never got if, in one of her clumsy encounter with the hard ground, she had not noticed what, at first, had scared her to death.

Not that since her arrival to Middle-earth she had not had quite the scare, but hearing a tree chuckling while calling her a clumsy child wasn't something she had expected.

Unexpected, yes, but, for the first time, something for which Andromeda had found herself smiling hesitantly instead of screaming, because the old oak had been gentle with her, offering a couple of apples to share with the dwarf, apples she did not even dare to bite, because, unlike the dwarf, she did not need to eat to survive.

Then, the kind tree had allowed her to hide inside a small hole in his trunk when it had begun to rain, hiding her with its leaves when she had heard the howling of what she knew weren't simple wolfs, but Wargs.

Wargs that were searching for her.

The old oak had given her the sad news with a faint whisper, actually, it had confessed to her that many other creatures were searching for her.

She was carrying one of the Silmaril, after all, and Andromeda would have lied if she had not expected something like that.

Sauron was canny, sneaky, with powerful allies.

And Andromeda wasn't ashamed to admit to herself to be scared, scared to death.

Because, even if she could not die, there were many things Sauron could have done to her to make her speak, to make her surrender and praying for mercy, something she would have done, if they had caught her, and if the trees had not helped her, they would have surely found her.

She was no warrior, after all.

She didn't know how to cover their track, how to camouflage with the surrounding, she could find apples to eat and water to drink, but she could not fight, especially not against Wargs.

She had read about them, obviously, and the idea of meeting one of those monsters made her sweat cold and quicken her steps every time she let her mind wander a little too long.

She had run for weeks, probably, she wasn't sure of that.

She had not had the time to look at the moon, she had been too busy with taking care of Thràin, helping him to recover from the mental break down that had made the King Under the Mountain scared and needy as a scared little child.

Not that she could really blame him.

He had been tortured for years, it was normal to act like that, to be so lost, so broken.

Therefore, when he had wanted to hold her hand while walking, she had been alright with it.

It was not a bother, for Andromeda, actually, it helped her to have a lucid mind, because she knew that she was close to her own mental break down, and she needed something to distract herself from thinking about her own misery.

Her own tragedy.

She was alone, after all, she could not return home or meet her family, no one was waiting for her at the end of her path, but for him, yes, there were people who were waiting for him, even if the thought to meet Thorin Oakenshield wasn't comforting as Andromeda liked to think.

He was an intimidating dwarf, from what she had read, kingly, brave, but as sharp as a blade and as deadly as a stab in her chest if angered, and Andromeda wasn't so sure that the dwarf would not have tried to stab her with his blade once he had seen her, not even if she had presented herself with his long-lost father.

He would have thought of her as a spy, as an enemy, and she did not know how to explain to him who she was without a voice to use, not that it would have mattered since theirs was a different language, but at least, she could have tried to make him understand that she was no threat.

_\- He would probably kill me on the spot._

When the thought left her troubled mind, Andromeda did not expect the sudden yank that made her almost lose balance if she had not grasped in time a twig above her head, but when she lowered gaze, she wasn't even prepared to meet the hard sky blue eyes that were staring at her with so much strength to make her jolt in response.

_\- What happened? Is something wrong?_

Even before the dwarf could answer to her panicked questions, her hand had already reached the stocky body where she could see no blood, or wounds, or something that could have caused such strong emotions in his eyes.

Thràin was still too affected by the torture to be able to do anything else but gazing in the void and jumping whenever he heard a strange sound in the bushes, he barely remembered his name and where he came from, even when she had tried to make him talk about his son she had not found some kind of recognition in his blurry eyes.

He was too entangled in his own pain to be able to remember something else apart from the torture and the pain, but there were brief flashes of lucidity that allowed him to act more like he should have, like the brave dwarf she had read about.

_\- I…protect you…_

Her eyes watered even before she could let the inarticulated thought reach her mind, a trembling smile to touch her chapped lips as her hand gave a gentle squeeze to his scrawny shoulder before the light that had made Thràin's eyes more lucid left his gaze, his eyes once again distant, unfocused, but she did not need him to be alert, she would have been the one to lead the way, to be vigilant, after all.

And vigilant were indeed the eyes Andromeda led beyond the thick clearing she was passing through, the sharp outline of the Blue Mountain a view for which she let a flash of relief brighten her eyes as she went back to walk, gently pulling Thràin towards the city at the feet of the mountain that they would have reached in the late night, and indeed they reached it when the darkness had already fallen upon their head and no stars were able to light up their path, but Andromeda needed no light.

She knew where she was going even without asking for her own light to shine, what her bare feet would have trodden upon even if she had not lowered her eyes to the dirty ground, what would have waited for her if she had dared to take the open road, but she wasn't so silly to believe to be finally safe, because they weren't, or at least, she wasn't, she would have never been.

She was still being tailed and in danger.

Wargs and men were the same things for her, for what she carried.

They were both dangerous, both a threat, but not for the dwarf who was limping beside her, too tired to be able to stand by now.

She had to bring Thràin to his kin as soon as possible, to bring him to safety.

They would have protected him from the incoming darkness while she, she would have continued her journey without him.

That way Sauron would not have tried to hurt them to get her, they would have been safe without her, everyone would have been spared without her.

She was a burden no one would have wanted to bear, and she, she didn't want, she didn't need someone to share her tragedy, her fate.

She would have been fine by herself. She would have been fine with being alone.

It was safer. It was simpler. It was what she wanted.

To be left alone.

_She deserved it._

_\- Wait._

Her thought left her mind even before her feet could come to a stop, the dwarf behind her back now completely leaned against her side, his hand clutched to her sweaty one while Andromeda's ears picked up as she tried to catch the sound that had made her stop so abruptly.

But except for the howling of the wind she could not catch anything out of place, nothing a normal person would have picked up, but she was no longer a normal being, she was no longer a human being, and what she was hearing wasn't only the howling of the wind, but the muttered words of who, until now, had been able to warn her about the danger, about the location of her hunter, and the whispered _he is here_ that her ears were able to catch was enough to paralyze her.

But she wasn't going mad. Not this time.

Because, before, she had been fooled by her own madness.

She had become a little paranoid after what she had gone through, and, by now, she had become so obsessed by the possibility to find danger to see it behind every concern, every shadow, every hole in the ground, but Andromeda knew that something was wrong, incredibly wrong, that she wasn't simply hallucinating, that she wasn't simply hearing voices that did not exist, not again.

She could not explain it, but she could feel it, _the danger._

It was dancing around her stiff form like a ghost, a heavy breath she could feel grazing her nape, a shiver that made her knees tremble and her teeth clash, a horror she could feel sliding in her throat as she yanked Thrain towards a barrel behind which she crouched, her eyes wide and her hands now placed on the mouth the dwarf had just opened under the cry he was going to release when he saw it.

A shadow.

Massive, clouded in the mist of the night, with a shape difficult to discern from the darkness in which he was engulfed, but Andromeda's eyes had become accustomed to the dark, her mind sharpened by the knowledge that, however, did not to do justice to it.

Because even if it had been described as a dreadful monster, what she saw crawling in the darkness wasn't even comparable to what she had imagined, what she had feared to see.

To face.

_\- Shh, it's ok. It's ok._

She was whimpering. And trembling. And praying whatever deity she knew to spare her that horror, that fate, to let her pass without furthermore pain, to let her escort Thràin to his family without other hardship.

But Andromeda knew, deep down, that she could not afford something like that.

To be spared.

She did not deserve it. Not after killing a person, another human being.

Not when she had condemned that world to fall prey of its doom.

She deserved to pay, for what she had done, but not now. _Not now, please_ she prayed with her eyes full of tears fixed on the dark sky.

She would have paid her debt, but Thràin did not deserve to be involved, not when his chance to be happy was so close.

Not when the possibility to redeem herself was so near.

It was cruel, too cruel to bear, to accept, but when she heard a couple of probably drunken men shout in the dark while shoving each other with silly giggles along the desert path, when her scared gaze was able to catch the towering figure cloaked in black who was escorting the two drunkards with harsh words but kind moves, something in her broken mind screamed horrified when her frozen mind recognized him.

Even if it was so dark not to be able to see her own feet.

Even if it was unthinkable to be able to meet Thorin so soon, so easily, but things, in that world, did not work according to the logic, they did not happen with a precise order, they happen when she didn't need them to happen, when she was no ready to face them, and she wasn't.

Andromeda wasn't ready for that.

For meeting the King Under the Mountain.

For returning alone.

For being forgotten by the only man who knew about her. Her name. Her misery. Her story.

She wasn't ready to act, to throw herself in the face of the danger, to let her fall prey of death's arms, because she would have died, again, if she had stepped out from her hiding.

If she had decided to warn them about the incoming danger.

Of the monster who was lurking in the dark.

She would have died.

And she was scared of that.

To realize how cruel her destiny still was.

How endless her torment would have been.

That, in the end, she had no one to call. No one to pray.

That she would have been once again alone.

It was cruel. It was heartbreaking, it was unfair, but nothing, nothing would have been more painful than failing again, than contracting another debt with that world, than losing another fragment of her shattered soul.

So Andromeda tried to collect all the bravery she could afford from inside her, her breath heavy, her eyelids tremulant and wet by the tears she let rolling on her cheeks, her heart a loud thundering in the chest she gripped with one hand before stiffening her limbs, so to prepare her shaking body to move, to prevent another death that would have been her fault, _again._

Because the Warg was searching for her.

She was the one the monster had to bring back to his master, and even if the monster would have succeeded his goal, she would have tried to distract him the time necessary for the dwarves to retreat.

She could not afford more than that, than buying time for them to flee, but it would have been enough.

She would have made it enough.

\- Hush.

When Thorin's hard wording reached their ears, both the giggling dwarfs who were playfully shoving each other stopped in their tracks, their lucid eyes now more vivid and alert as Kili and Fili reached for the daggers hidden beneath their crumpled robes without actually extracting them, ready, however, to face whatever their uncle was staring at with his stony gaze, as he was challenging what the darkness was concealing to come to light.

However, it wasn't from the front that they had to defend themselves by an incoming danger, but they realized it too late and too slowly when the shadow who had just thrown itself against them took them by surprise from the side.

When Andromeda felt the hard and painful impact with the ground she knew that she had not simply fallen with the young dwarfs she had tried to reach, but that something had knocked her against it, the hand she could feel tightening around her throat, rough fingers to sink in the soft skin of her jugular vein as the imposing man above her tried to discern from the dark her features.

A choked sob escaped her lips when she did not answer to his thundering questions, but she could not understand him.

She could not tell him that she did not know his language, that it did not matter how much he strengthened his grip, how long he would have tried to choke her, she would have never answered him, not in the common way, at least.

_\- Take him with you._

Fili raised an alarmed gaze when he saw his uncle distancing himself from the shadow he was just strangling just a moment ago while Kili was trying to restrain the old, smelly man who had just tried to knock them off.

Not that he would have succeeded in his foolish attempt.

He was all bones and frail limbs, he would have broken even before touching them, but the old, foolish man did not seem to care about that, not when he tried to bite off Kili's arms in his attempt to reach the trembling shadow who succeeded on standing up, even if shakily.

Andromeda gulped her own fear and tears when the air filled her lungs once again, a hand closed protectively on her throat to prevent the man in front of her to try to choke her to death again.

A hysterical laugh vibrated in her chest when she pondered about how people in that world seemed to love to choke her, but now she didn't have the time to have a nervous breakdown, to lose it. No. Not yet.

She would have had all the time to go mad, but now, now she had to save them, now she had to give them the time to flee.

Even if she knew that the dwarf in front of her would have stabbed her with the blade she saw shimmering in the dark if she had moved even from an inch, if she had tried to touch him so to talk with his spirit, like she used to do with Thràin, but if she could not tell him who was the man his nephew was crushing in his powerful arms, she could at least show him that the threat wasn't her, it wasn't him.

But what Andromeda knew was waiting for her in the dark.

Thorin Oakenshiled did not flinch like his young nephews when a sparkle of blue light sizzled in the air as the coughing of a small thunder.

He did not take a step back when the first sparkle was followed soon by a more solid flash of light that, for an instant, lighted up fair hair and haunted eyes.

But when the flickering of light steadied itself, when the initial flashing of light became more vivid, more solid, something in his eyes changed as Kili and Fili gasped at the sight of their attacker.

Andromeda did not look away when she caught the shifting in the dwarf's icy blue eyes, a blue lighter and piercing than Thràin's.

Because Thorin Oakenshield's eyes were like glass. Hard. Transparent. _Cold._

It was like looking at the surface of a crystalline lake that could have swallowed you if you had tried to take a peek inside, if you had tried to see what was hidden beneath the hard surface, something Andromeda did not dare to discover, because it was enough the dwarf's overpowering presence to make her desist.

**Different.**

Thorin Oakenshield was different from what she had imagined.

He was tall, taller than she had thought at first.

His arms, although covered by a cloak, seemed able to crush the strong trunk of an old oak barehanded, as well as her waist line and arms.

His build was strong, with sharp features, thick eyebrows, thin mouth and pale skin.  
He was more intimidating than she had expected, but it was his eyes what surprised her, what made her breath hitch.

Penetrating. Cutting. Beautiful.

He was a beautiful, terrible man with beautiful and terrible eyes.

Someone who could make you sigh and gasp at the same time, but what Andromeda did, what she could afford with the little time she had was simply staring at him.

And for a moment, a foolish, small moment, Andromeda could not help herself to be curious about what the dwarf was thinking while looking at her like that, with so much coldness to make her tremble, but when she heard the close growling, Andromeda knew that Thorin should have looked at someone else.

Somewhere else.

The blade whistled in the air when the dwarf saw the strange creature with fair hair moving her slim and bruised arm towards him, or, judging by the way his nephew gasped in attracting the attention of the wounded, strange lady, behind him.

And even if looking back would have been dangerous, unwise, when he saw the eyes of the strange creature soften a little, it was the curiosity to discover what could make such a haunted gaze becoming so gentle to make him throw a look back.

Kili did not move when he felt his uncle's gaze upon him, he did not flinch when, suddenly, Thorin reached him with shaking steps, he did not let the surprise light up his eyes when he caught something akin to tears in his uncle's eyes, but when he heard him gasp, when he saw him falling to his knee in front of him, something snapped inside the dwarf.

The frenzy that brought Fili to grab his uncle's wrist to help him to stand up, but it was like trying to move a mountain, it was like asking for a tree to shove over.

It was futile.

Because Thorin was much stronger than them, and if he did not care to move, he would not have moved, not even from an inch.

\- Uncle?

Thorin did not answer at his nephew's nervous call.

His eyes were too busy in searching in the bony face of the old man in front him the familiar features he had buried in his memory along with the pain of a loss he would have never been able to overcome.

But he was there, in front of him.

His father, the one he had lost along with his home, his sanity, his hope, was in front of him, now.

Skinner than he remembered. Bruised. Wounded. With a tormented look that made his wrists tremble and his breath stall, but he was there.

He was there.

\- Where did you find him?

Andromeda did not look away from the darkness that had attracted her gaze when she heard but did not understand Thorin's Oakenshiled hiss.

Not because she did not care about his words, not because she did not want to look at him, at Thràin, one last time, but she had read, once, that it was not wise looking away from a beast's intense gaze when he was challenging you, and the Warg was looking at her in the eyes.

He was challenging her to try to escape.

\- What have you done to him? Answer me, witch!

Andromeda did not need to know the language to understand what he was saying to her, of what he was accusing her.

She had expected him to do it from the beginning, to blame Thràin's condition on her.

He was too bitter from the betrayal of the past and too blinded by his own pain, grief and anger to be able to see the fingertips burned on her throat, the sign of handcuffs on her wrists and ankles, to see that she too, was a victim, that she had been tortured too.

But he had been on the verge of throwing down from the mountain poor Bilbo after everything he had done for him, and if, until now, her own misery had not been able to tear her apart, the memory to have killed who would have saved Middle-Earth finally broke her.

\- Protect…you…

When Andromeda heard his tremulous voice, she blinked a couple of times to free her eyelids from the tears she felt rolling down her cheeks when she recognized the word, something Thràin had already repeated in her mind to make her understand what he wanted to do, a sentence that brought the two dwarfs who were restraining the old man to look strangely at him while Thorin stared hard in his father's eyes that, however, weren't focused on him, but on the frail young woman who was silently crying with her face turned to the darkness.

\- I – Thràin felt his lungs burn when he tried to articulate the word, his eyes now vigilant, afire, while his arms tried to losen the grip around his skinny limbs to let him reach her – I…protect you. Andromeda.

Like an elastic band that had been ripped from what was keeping it in place, Andromeda's head turned abruptly towards the dwarf who had just called her by her name, her eyes wide while her mouth attempted a trembling smile as the halo of light around her became brighter for the wave of warmth that reached her cheeks, her heart, unconcerned of the howl she heard just in front of her, or the hissing of the blade Thorin wielded with both hands when he recognized the shape that had just come out from the darkness.

But not even then Andromeda left Thràin's pained face and eyes.

She kept on looking at him even if she knew how close the Warg was, how silly was wasting time like that, but no one had called her name since when she had been thrown in that word, and she, she had forgotten how pleasant was being called, how heartbreaking was knowing that someone, there, would have remembered her even if for few moments, but it was enough for her.

Yes. It was enough.

_\- Thank you._

A gentle, broken smile.

That one was what Thorin caught in the corner of his eyes before a flash of light and the sound of quick steps brought him to raise his sword and to stare in front of him as the Warg charged, Kili and Fili at his side with a couple of daggers clutched in their hands, ready to fight, ready to defend themselves, but shock soon came over their disoriented mind and face when they saw the imposing monster crouching on his powerful paws to jump, but not towards them, but _above_ them, ignoring their presence, their weapons, and their incredulous gaze as he kept on following the lady they saw disappearing in the woods with the Warg on her heels.

\- Hey!

When Kili's shout rumbled in the silent night like a thunder, many different things happened at once.

Thràin, now free from the grip of the young dwarf, wasted no time to run towards the woods where Andromeda and the Warg had just disappeared.

Kili and Fili, despite the bewilderment that still shook their heart and gaze, had no choice but to do the same when they saw their usual impassible uncle ran after the smelly, old man with an anxious gaze that troubled them to the core.

And the people who, until then, were peacefully sleeping waked up with a start, the far howling of the Warg followed by the clattering of the weapons people began to raise in the dark while torches were alighted and men were descending on the street to hunt down the monster who was threatening their life and their home.

A monster that would have taken more than one shape and a name, that night, depending on who you would have asked.

Because, what most of the people tended to forget, was that it was thanks to light that darkness could be found, could be seen, and the more Andromeda would have burned to chase away the darkness, the more the darkness would have tried to choke the last gleam of light, blurring the delicate line that distinguished what was right from what was not.

 

 

 

Thanks for reading! See you in the next chapter!


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